To be honest, this book isn't very different from the other Heroes of Olympus books. I mean, I enjoyed all of them (at least till this point), but I felt like none of them had that extra "something" which could have made them 5 star reads. Well, The House of Hades had that special something. I think the major reason why I liked this one more than the others was because there was just so much more emotional development for all the characters. I mean, it's a bit crazy how Rick fit this much character work into a single book, but you know what? He pulled it off pretty well. Minor spoilers here for the previous book, but a certain event at the end of it leaves Percy and Annabeth isolated from the rest of the seven; and I just love how Rick handled their relationship throughout the book. One of my favourite couples in fiction for sure.