lisaluvsliterature's Reviews (4.19k)

Once again I am in love with Rick Riordan and his world of mythological creatures and demigods! I put off reading this for so long because when his other new series, The Kane Chronicles, came out, I couldn't wait to start reading it. And then, unfortunately, I was quite disappointed. And I love Egyptian mythology, so that was very sad to me. But the way the story was told, between the two characters, I had trouble sometimes remembering which person I was reading from their point of view. Which really made it hard to let the story take me away. But with this new Heroes of Olympus series, I was grabbed again and sucked back into the story, just like I was back with the Percy Jackson series.

We have a new group of demigods in this story to follow around, but some of the old ones, as well as other characters are back. Of course we still have all the Greek gods, but we now learn about the Roman gods and how they relate to the Greek ones and demigods. Percy Jackson has disappeared, and at the same time a new demigod, Jason, has just shown up out of nowhere. Now, the kids he is dropped in with have all these memories as if they've known him, but soon learn it is just the Mist messing with their memories. And of course, something is brewing, and there is a quest. The kids get to Camp Halfblood where it should be safe for them, but not without danger along the way! There they meet Annabeth who is looking for Percy.
One of our other new demigods is Piper, who is the daughter of a famous movie-star. What I like about this story is that we know kind of from the get-go that Piper may betray her friends. Her dad has been kidnapped, and she is being contacted by something evil. And this evil has said she must keep the quest from being successful if she wants to save her dad. The other of the three new ones is Leo, who is a son of Hephaestus. I have to say I just loved Leo. His character is so funny. I also felt him to be very relatable. He felt as if he was a nobody, that his friends had all the power. But he can withstand fire, and even create it! And he is great with fixing things. I also love how his "type" of girl are the ones that are way out of his league and he knows are not attracted to him. Again, that seems to be my "type" of guy. He also has secrets he doesn't want to share with his friends, and worries about whether he can help or if he'll be causing the quest to fail.
And finally we have our Jason. Jason can't remember who he really is, but he seems to have a lot more memories of the Roman gods as opposed to the Greek ones. At Camp Halfblood, Chiron knows he is, and tells him he should be dead. But then won't explain why? Hera, or Juno in Roman mythology, comes to the demigods saying she needs their help in order to prevent another evil from taking over, even though the Titans were defeated before. And as the story goes on, we learn more and more about Jason, but in very small doses. We're given just little tidbits that fill in some blanks, but still leave you hanging till the end to find out more.
Some great new characters/gods in this book. I loved King Midas, he was funny, as well as Aeolus, also really amusing to read his part in the book. I'm now so excited to go on with this series, and you'd think as part of my "September is for Sequels Challenge" that I'd read on in the series, but alas, I have other books on the list to get rid of. This does help me out in getting the current Truman nominees read, because I hadn't read them all yet. But doesn't help with the ones I need to help read for next year.

I only gave this 4 out of 5 stars. But that's more on me, than the quality of the book. It was good, but it feels like so long ago that I read the first 2 books, or maybe just so many books that I've read since, I was a little lost at first. Kind of like Nora. We get a quick flash at the beginning back to what was happening at the end of the last book, enough to make me think I needed to go back and re-read it, because I was a little unclear about some of the details. But fortunately, the author is nice enough to give us Nora's flashbacks, as she's remembering, as well as when she can get into Patch's memories through his wing scars, and that helped to catch me up. I also for some reason don't seem to remember Nora being such a goody goody as she thinks she is in this book. I may have to go back and read the first one again. I just didn't get that from her the first time I read it. But, I have to admit, that I do connect with that side of Nora a little bit more. As I was quite the goody goody as a teenager. But I like how the story goes in this one. We're introduced to some bad guys towards the beginning that I was sure would show up again, but they didn't really seem to till the end. There were some scary moments with them though, until Jev showed up. And I really want to know what Jev stands for now. Nora's best friend hides the whole thing about Patch from her, as well as her mother, who is now dating Nora's worst enemy's (Marcy Millar) father. And not only is he a car salesman, and one of the richest men in town, he is also the Black Hand. Which Nora finally starts getting clued back into after her encounter with those bad guys I was talking about, Gabe and others, and then when she meets up with her childhood friend, Scott. Who is also a Nephilim, who is hiding from Hank, because he does not want to swear fealty and have to give up his body.
The archangel we meet at the end of the story and what she has to say to Patch and Nora sets us up for the last book in the series. And I was left needing to know what would happen. Will Nora step in to take over for her "father" Hank's army, and will she end the war, or will she have to lead the rebellion as he asked? All in all this was a good next book, and now I'm ready for what I'm sure will be an awesome Finale!!