Trying to figure out what I thought of this book (which I picked up before I go see the movie), but I'm still so confused. It flew by, and all I got were faint impressions of Driver between trying to figure out when I was reading about his past or the current events.

Totally forgot I'd finished this. Anyway.

I keep reading reviews and seeing comments about how Flavia is such a precocious, forward girl, and while her forwardness, intelligence and quick thinking are things to admire, I could not get over the fact that she is a sociopath in the making. Does no one else see this? It was enough to divorce me from the book as a whole, and I kept reading only to find out where the mystery went.

That wasn't so great, either.

Spoiler

OH MY GOD HOW COULD IT END THERE

HOW

The worst part is that I was all, 'oh, there are still eight pages left, I'm getting giddy here, oh my gods it's happeni--NO! GLOSSARY? WHAT IS THIS MADNESS?!'



I think my frustrated kicking in bed woke up my boyfriend. At least he stopped snoring for a minute, so there was some good that came out of that ending.

As befitting the Percy Jackson universe, everything is amped up to the next level in this installment, and it's all damn good fun. Riordan has the uncanny ability to make me ignore little things that may bug me about a series and just immerse myself in the story. The myths, the characters, the bravery, the fear, the pride.

God, it's going to be a year. A WHOLE YEAR. Why did I have to read The Lost Hero last week? I could have continued in blissful ignorance and wouldn't be staring down this black hole of longing.

2.5 stars

This book started out really cool -- Scarlett is one kickass girl, goddamn -- but fizzled out half of the way through. Hunting aside, it all ended up being 100 pages of Scarlett wanting nothing but the hunt and Rosie wanting more for her life and ogling Silas.

I haven't read about such a pair of co-dependent siblings since the Cal Leandros series, but there's so much more to their relationship there. Pearce could take a lesson from them, instead of having Rosie think she deserves nothing but to do everything Scarlett says because her sister saved her life, and Scarlett just letting her. That drove me insane.

I expected so much more from this. It's a great ghost story, and for the first two thirds of the book, that holds true. Then all of a sudden the story shifts its focus and it really threw me off.

Spoiler

Going from finding out Anna's history to her all of a sudden being good, Cas and Anna falling in love, and another ghost enters the story as the real Big Bad was like having the rug yanked out from under me.

Lots of other people have reviewed this book better than I could.

But I will say that this is the sort of novel that those who enjoy a slow burn and threads coming together will love.