This is the fifth and last book in the Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan. The book was first published, and narrated by Nick Chamian. It is a fantasy adventure with plenty of Greek and roman mythology for children, though the only ones who likes this I have met are adult. Now, this is the last book in the series so I will first review this book and then go on to the review of the entire series.
This book continues a very long adventure of taking the statue of Athena to the Greek camp, stop a war between the Greek and the Romans and stop the slumbering titan Gaia. On the way they meet enemies after enemies as they try to stop them and they have to use their cunning and courage to survive.
Frankly, I don’t know much what to say that I haven’t already said in the other books. The characters are mostly a bunch of old ones that doesn’t really evolve. The newest member is Reyna which… I don’t know what to say about her. Her main focus seems to be her feelings for Jason while being another girl no different than the others. Most of the girls feels the same and I have a hard time distinguish them sometimes.
The plot is just like all the other books. They get an obscure “quest”. Maybe get an object which is suppose to be important or maybe get information. They come up with a plan, it goes wrong, a battle. The villain, many we have seen before, monologues their entire history and then someone tricks them and everyone falls for it because… Every adult in this one is an idiot. Most of this setup is to prolong the books to far too long length, none of them being under 500 pages, and the monologues just goes on too long. I was bored out of my mind by the long dialogue.
There were also some really strange wordings in this one, such as the author calling everyone a greekess, even Percy which is the archaic word for a female Greek. Was it a typo or did the author just not have a dictionary?
I guess the story could have been good if the monologues where cut and not so forced, but most of the story is buried in unnecessary information and just predictable plotlines. A child might on the hand not care, but as an adult who listened to all the books after each others, felt like it didn’t hold up. Perhaps I would have liked it more if I had the nostalgia which many of the other adults who adore this book seem to have, but I didn’t and with nothing to fall back on, this book was just plain.
I would give it a 4 out 10, only giving a four because it came together fairly well, and many seem to like this one even if I cannot understand why. People seemed to like the fight scenes and there are many of them, but I often just skim through long battle scenes so it doesn’t interest me. What is left is monologues, half-assed mythology which mostly is just a shallow depiction of mythology without the true philosophical meaning of each story, and badly written romances.
Now for the entirety of the series. Those who has read previous reviews of this series or for that matter, Percy Jackson, knows I don’t like these stories. They are shallow with a lot of battles with badly written romances and mythology alongside overpowered characters. This series was no different but I will give that at least Riordan tries to make some of the characters decent with weaknesses and problems. They make quite a contrast against Percy Jackson and Jason who belong to the idealized hero (or Mary Sue if they were female). But most of the problems feel shallow, such as Leo not getting a girl and Percy randomly feeling useless despite having done plenty of quest and defeated plenty of enemies along the way.
It feels like Riordan didn’t know what to do so he randomly crammed in drama, half-assed romances and previous defeated enemies. Many of the enemies have the personality of tin cans at that. It doesn’t help that the plotline is almost always the same. The demigods send three of their team to ask for help, surprise, the person who where suppose to help them is actually working for Gaia. Then he/she monologues their background and the demigod has to escape, often by trickery. The female enemies almost always have some kind of charming ability while all the girls seem to be immune to them so the girls have to get the boys out of it by begging or trick their enemy. If it is about battle then the guys get to shine, often having badass moments where they lead armies and fight of an army single handedly.
It’s on repeat in every book, often having the same structure at least ones in each book, often more. I just got tired of it by the end. Once again, a child might not care or notice but I did so I cannot ignore it. I’m trying to figure out what it is that people like about it, I seriously do, Which is why I read this series despite not really liking Percy Jackson, but to me it just feel long, tedious and shallow.
Sorry, to all of you who like this one but for the small minority who think like me. You are not alone. I will give the entire series a 3 out of 10. Wanting to make it lower but allowing it a higher score because of the popularity. It clearly wasn’t aimed for me, which means that all the problems of the books stick out like a sore thumb and I just overpowered whatever good there was in the book. I hope it will bring joy to someone, for that someone wasn’t me.
With Kind Regards
Senefer.
Read with Senefer 