Review #5: The Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan

Product details:

Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Format: Hardback
Length: 516 pages
Published: 2014
Rating: ☆☆☆☆
Source: Purchased

Though the Greek and Roman crewmembers of the Argo II have made progress in their many quests, they still seem no closer to defeating the earth mother, Gaea. Her giants have risen—all of them—and they’re stronger than ever. They must be stopped before the Feast of Spes, when Gaea plans to have two demigods sacrificed in Athens. She needs their blood—the blood of Olympus—in order to wake.
The demigods are having more frequent visions of a terrible battle at Camp Half-Blood. The Roman legion from Camp Jupiter, led by Octavian, is almost within striking distance. Though it is tempting to take the Athena Parthenos to Athens to use as a secret weapon, the friends know that the huge statue belongs back on Long Island, where it “might” be able to stop a war between the two camps.
The Athena Parthenos will go west; the Argo II will go east. The gods, still suffering from multiple personality disorder, are useless. How can a handful of young demigods hope to persevere against Gaea’s army of powerful giants? As dangerous as it is to head to Athens, they have no other option. They have sacrificed too much already. And if Gaea wakes, it is game over.

Right, lets get started with this review. The Blood of Olympus. Can we just take a minute to look back at where it all began, back with Percy and Annabeth in The Lightning Thief. How time has flown. However, this is the Heroes of Olympus series we’re talking about and I need to focus on that. I will start off point blank by saying that I adored this book, and although there was an issue I found with it that I’ll discuss later, I have to say that Rick Riordan deserves a large round of applause, because that man knows exactly what his reader’s want, and did he deliver? Yes.Yes he did.

We start off Blood of Olympus with the chapter scene that Rick Riordan released earlier in the year, with Jason’s perspective. Jason, Annabeth and Piper are infiltrating Odysseus’s
palace to see what the suitors, who have returned from the dead, are up to and to see if
they can gain any information on what to do next. What I want to point out here is that the
book takes place two weeks after the events of The House of Hades. I’ve seen a lot of
comments about saying that Annabeth and Percy aren’t very phased by what happened to
them in Tartarus and don’t discuss it with any of their friends for support. Can I just mention
that we got a whole half a book of Percy and Annabeth going through the toils of Tartarus, I
think it’s pretty clear we got the idea of what they were going through and how it would
develop, and in regards to the not discussing it? For all we know the characters could haveconversed in that whole two week period we are missing text for.

I’m not going to go any further with detailed plotpoints because that is what the synopsis is for, and well spoilers really. Go out and buy the book and read it for yourself, trust me it’s worth it. However, I will say this. Throughout the book our viewpoints switch between the seven demigods on the Argo II, and Reyna, Nico and Coach Hedge and we get the two different story lines which eventually overlap in the final few chapters. But yes, it is all amazing.

Moving onto Rick Riordan’s writing style, which if you’re reading this review, you’ve
already read Rick’s previous books so are aware of how comical he can be with not
only his dialogue but also character developments. In my opinion, The Blood of Olympus
brought all of the ‘laugh out loud’ moments and provided me with laughter almost on every
page. Going from Percy’s comments of children of Poseidon not being able to drown and
neither will his pancakes, to Leo’s astrology representations of I’m a Leo, you’re a Percy –
each comical in their own right and frankly they just made this book a lot more enjoyable for
me.

Now characters. Rick has a reputation for showing great character development in his
novels and the Blood of Olympus is no exception. Although some people disagree I think we
can definitely agree that some of the newly introduced characters (Leo, Jason, Piper,
Hazel, Frank) have developed tremendously from The Lost Hero and the Son of Neptune.
As you can probably tell already from my reactions in this review but Leo is clearly my
favourite out of the new bunch, especially for his clever wit and constant comic relief –
although this comical attitude developed quite seriously towards the end of the novel (those
who have read the book know what I’m on about.) I also want to talk about how refreshing it
was to be inside Nico and especially Reyna’s head. So far with Nico I have been torn
between getting really frustrated how angsty he had become in this series and loving
him to pieces. Obviously Rick revealed a large character development in Nico’s scene with
Cupid in the House of Hades, but I felt Nico’s POV’s in this book really allows the reader to
understand why he felt that way, and that scene with his father? Can we just take a minute
to give Rick another round of applause. It is deserved. Now Reyna, I was so glad to hear
her point of view because up until this book I was never that invested in Reyna’s character.
If I’m honest, it really took me a while to remember what importance she played in the
series, but this book really opened it up for me. Hearing Reyna’s backstory I feel was
incredibly crucial and it was nice to see how relatable she was at times, especially to the
other characters.

But enough about characters, I would like to talk about an issue I had about this book,
and for those of you who have not completed the book yet I strongly suggest you do not
read ahead. Major Spoilers, because what I had an issue with was the final battle. Let me
say that I loved the scene where the Gods came down to assist the demigods with killing the
giants. I thought that was incredibly well fleshed out and then I could understand why the
final fight with Gaia was left to the demigods, they needed to prove they could do it alone. I
get that. What annoyed me slightly was that Gaia’s awakening has been foreshadowed and
built up to throughout the entire Heroes of Olympus series, and don’t get me wrong I loved
how Rick Riordan brought about her demise, but I felt as if there wasn’t much too it before
hand. I expected to really get a good glimpse at what Gaia herself was capable of. I’m
talking about some Avatar style godly earth bending here. Yet her demise seemed to be as
sudden as she awoke and rose from the ground by Half Blood Hill. Let me know what you
think about that, I might have just read through it too fast and missed bits but it seemed very
much ‘Gaia rises from the hill. Festus grabs her and flies high into the sky, Leo goes The
Human Torch on her ass and then Octavian becomes a human comet. Dead.’ As I said, it’s
possibly just me, but oh well.

Anyway, my final rating and ‘feels’ on the book as Rick would call them. I loved it. I thought it was extremely well written, I just feel that the final fight scene with Gaia was a bit more fleshed out. I was expecting an ending similar to The Last Olympian from PJO in terms of action. Shame. I would also like to briefly point out that people that I have seen review this so far have complained about all of the loose ends and mini cliffhangers, seeming quite shocked that Riordan hasn’t tied them off. Guys, we were warned of mini cliffhangers in the dedication of the book. You should know by now Rick Riordan does not mess about, well not that much. Overall I give this book a solid 4 star classification!