We left Percy Jackson and the Olympians with Percy using his gift from Zeus to ensure that all demigod children would be claimed. It’s a promise that would definitely help a lot of their kids to, you know, not die. However, Zeus does not promise anything more than that. So, while there’s the added benefit of all demigods knowing their parentage, they are now at a disadvantage by not having any support from anyone’s godly parent. This is a huge withdraw, especially when you look at someone like Percy who seems to communicate more than average with Poseidon. However, it feels a little more like the ancient myths where the gods would only sometimes intervene in behalf of their offspring.

Like I said in my review of PJO, Riordan takes care to intentionally write characters of color into his stories. It stems from his beliefs that kids deserve to read stories about themselves. There are some critics to his efforts, though I wonder what they would think of Riordan introducing a more colorful main trio in The Lost Hero. More than that, their identities are going deeper this time. Their race becomes more influential to their personality like with Leo’s relationship with his Tia who’s not his Tia and Piper’s experiences with being Native American. 

While Riordan continued to expand the kinds of kids who present as demigods, he also fleshed out some of his previous characters. I was particularly pleased with Aphrodite. We saw how she has a bit of strategy locked in her brain, but Riordan didn’t sacrifice any of the shallowness that we expect of someone who is a goddess of beauty. I also enjoyed meeting Hephaestus. All the other gods we had previously met seemed to be pretty confident in themselves, but then Hephaestus get nervous talking to his own, mortal son.

I also think meeting his dad was really important to Leo’s own growing confidence.</spoiker>

Out of the main trio, I think Leo was my favorite. I think it’s because he seemed to have the most complex thoughts and world view. I’ve spoken with a few of my friends who have read the series and they found Leo’s humor grating. I can admit it was over the top, but I’ve got a soft spot for the jokester with a tragic past.

Besides, I was 100% more interested in Leo’s struggle with losing his mom to the Dirt Lady than Jason’s amnesia. Mostly because Jason never seemed out of place enough to make recovering his memory worthwhile.

As much as I loved Leo, I can see why Jason is the main character in this tale. He has that sort of hero charisma that Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, and Katniss Everdeen have. Though he might not have remembered it, there was veiled notions that Jason was a leader of some kind back wherever he was from. Add on the fact that he’s been specially chosen by Hera, Queen of the Gods, as she’s been trapped (and maybe even before that) and you got the makings of a boy wonder. There were a few times throughout the book that alluded to Jason’s last name being “Grace”. Which can’t be a coincidence that Thalia’s last name was also Grace. Though, if they were to be siblings then it would throw the whole “don’t apply DNA to the Gods” thing for some kind of loop. It would be interesting to see how the two consider themselves related if they technically have the same parents.

The Lost Hero was a good setup for the new world Riordan was trying to introduce. It wasn’t so different from PJO that readers had to waste time learning an entirely new mythology and method. The story itself wasn’t all that impressive, but I understand it was all necessary as a means of introducing a new world and new characters. It existed in the world of the original series, but, like the characters, I think the story has grown up.