Book Review: Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan (Spoilers)
Let's discuss. (or rant)
I. Percy and Annabeth: Aha. The best part of the book was when Percy and Annabeth... oh wait. They did nothing. We barely saw them. Instead of Riordan alternating by giving them weak chapters then kickass chapters and doing the same with all the characters, we got a pair of unimportant background characters. W. H. A. T. We've been with these characters for years, only not to get a single chapter or some sort of closer with them? Just half a page of 'we're gonna live together yay'? Ugh. Percy dying of the poison underwater? In his domain? I get that Rick must show weakness and strength, but there was no strength to make up for the weakness. Annabeth too. Where's all the badassery? I love her friendship with Piper, but just like Piper helped her, Annabeth was supposed to help too. I expected more of Percy's fatal flaw. And where was the reunion with Sally and Paul? He didn't even mention his mom after the got back. No Percy/Grover bromance happened? He just seemed generally odd; not much of a leader. I just wish we saw more of his fatal flaw and/or evil side that Annabeth was scared of. She was literally scared he was getting too strong. In this book, no strength at all. It's sad to think there's no more Percy and Annabeth and it ended like that.
II. Jason and Piper: If you still don't like Piper after this, then goodbye. You are not my friend. Just kidding. You're all my friends. Anyway, the queen of badassery and bravery. She was amazing. If you still don't like her, I don't even know. Jason was the strong amazing leader he always was, but again, there was too much of him. Other characters suffered.
III. Leo: Leo was still his hilarious self. He sacrificed. He did what he wanted. He got the girl. I have nothing to complain about except the lack of people mourning. Like even Piper and Jason were very eh.. about it. I don't know. I felt like I needed more.
IV. Frank and Hazel: So... these amazing, wonderful characters that thrived in the other books got... nothing. Barely any action. Nothing. No stick burning. Nothing concerning their deaths. Why? There could have been so much, and we got so little. And it's sad.
V.Reyna and Nico: Too much Reyna and Nico. 50% of the book was Reyna and Nico. In my opinion, we should have only gotten one of their points of views. Two points of views in one place, it's a bit much. I get that there's all that Reyna backstory and whatever, but if Reyna's past is so important, then omit Nico. Or vice versa. If the two of them were part of the seven, I'd understand, but they're not even supposed to be main characters, so it wasn't right for them to take up 50% of the book -hell, they got more action than the fight with Gaea did. I'll get to that later. I love those too characters, and Reyna is one of my absolute favorites in the series, but they caused so much trouble for some main characters and it was disappointing. It's like BoO isn't part of the same series. They were side characters in the first 4 books. What happened?
VI. POVs in General: In my opinion, Reyna/Nico, Leo, Jason/Piper, Percy/Annabeth, and Hazel/Frank would be ideal. One of each pair. And well Leo. It would've been clear and equal.
VII. The Skipping: Is it me, or were so many things skimmed over in terms of "Show don't tell". We got no details. Leo built a thing. You won't know how he built the thing. The demigods got there. You won't know how. And it bothers me because the book was generally short. Like final books get to be long. Look at The Deathly Hallows or City of Heavenly Fire. And this is important to consider especially if you notice how long House of Hades was. The book really could have an added 100 pages to it.
The Gods: The gods. They were there. Then they were gone. What did Poseidon tell Percy? Annabeth thought her mom hated her, so what went on in their conversation? Oh. We don't know. We got Jason meeting his dad for the first time and even that was nothing compared to Percy meeting Poseidon in the first series. This is why we needed more POVs. We needed to see the conversations up close. Anyway, the fight? Why so fast? All fights were generally fast. Where are all the big final battles? AND WHAT HAPPENED TO APOLLO? I NEED TO KNOW.
Symmetry: My theory was that the books were going to be symmetrical in terms of the characters being stars.
Book 1: Jason, Leo, Piper
Book 2: Percy, Hazel, Frank
Book 3: Annabeth
Book 4: Percy, Hazel, Frank
Book 5: Jason, Leo, Piper
And it came true. I guessed right. But why? When I guessed that Piper, Leo, and Jason would play a big role in this book, I didn't guess that it would result in the disregard of FOUR VERY IMPORTANT CHARACTERS.
The Deaths: NO ONE DIED. It's so frustrating! I thought two demigods were supposed to die for Gaea to wake. Apparently not. A nosebleed proved enough. Very nice. I'll discuss Gaea in a minute. Not even one named background character died. The first series had more deaths. And Leo doesn't count. I WANTED someone to die. I wanted the book to hurt. It didn't.
Gaea: So Gaea is stronger asleep than awake? She can brainwash hordes of monsters and gods and minor-gods and raise giants in her sleep. Rick Riordan has been building up for this epic final battle. House of Hades was more exciting, and it was supposedly the "Calm before the storm". Where's the storm Riordan? We needed this epic fight. She's supposed to be unbeatable. We needed the gods and their kids and everyone fighting and achieving the impossible. We needed the Hunters and Amazons too. Greeks, Romans, everyone had to work together. Are you telling me Gaea was stronger asleep? All we had to do was charmspeak her? The most disappointing part of this book.
Octavian: Ew. I mean Luke redeemed himself. Octavian... nah.
The Ending: But whyyyyyyy? Whyyy? Why couldn't we have gotten Leo coming back to Camp Half Blood? The ending was cute and all -riding into the sunset bla bla. But still. I just needed to see him come back. But anyway, this is a personal preference. The ending was still good.
The Positives: In the end, this is a Rick Riordan book, and even though it's not 5stars, it's not 4 either because there were a bunch of positives.
-It wasn't as choppy as the previous books. Like even though they were all 5 star books, the previous ones had this choppy feel to them. We see monsters; we meet a god; we fight monsters; we meet a god.. etc. Instead, this one was more strewn together. And I liked it.
-Hylla and Reyna's moments together. Oh my god.
-The Athena statue protecting Reyna. That was really beautiful after Reyna told her it was a pleasure guarding her.
-Nico staying at Camp Half Blood.
-Humerous as always.
Magnus Chase: So Annabeth mentioned some relatives they really didn't get along with... And I'm guessing that's her cousin. So yay! Hopefully we see Annabeth and Percy in the new series. Maybe Reyna's going to fall in love with him since she won't find love with a demigod...?
In the end, I hope you liked this book. I did. As much as I complained, I still love this series. One of my all-time favorites. I can't believe it's over. 4.3 stars. What were your thoughts?
Good review! You addressed a lot of the issues I had with the book. I don't think I forgave those as readily as you do, though. Here's my review if you're interested.
ReplyDeleteI think I pretended to forgive them because I simply cannot handle my childhood ending in a bitter way, you know?
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