Confused as to why I'm reviewing this older book? SATIATE YOUR CURIOSITY WITH A LINK OF ALMOST DETAILS
Missed out on the first four books in the series? SAD. DON'T WORRY, I ALREADY REVIEWED THEM!
Book #1: THE LIGHTNING THIEF
Book #2: THE SEA OF MONSTERS
Book #3: THE TITAN'S CURSE
Book #4: THE BATTLE OF THE LABYRINTH
This is the last book in this series, but the characters continue into The Heroes of Olympus series which I will get to. I will take a brief book break to read two books as they have due dates in which I need to return them, but I will be reading The Lost Hero, The Son of Neptune, and AT LAST, The Mark of Athena.
THERE IS A LIGHT AT THE END OF THIS ROAD. Although I thought the road was pretty well lit to begin with, but metaphors get weird.
LET'S DO THIS.
Amazon summary that SUCKS, "All year the half-bloods have been preparing for battle against the Titans, knowing the odds are against them. Kronos is stronger than ever, and with every god and half-blood he recruits, his power only grows. In this momentous final book in the New York Times best-selling series, the prophecy surrounding Percy’s sixteenth birthday unfolds. And as the battle for Western civilization rages on the streets of Manhattan, Percy faces a terrifying suspicion that he may be fighting against his own fate." AMAZON LINK OF SUCKAGE
So to get this book review going, I'm going to paraphrase the freaking prophecy that's been held from us for the past four books and finally revealed to us in chapter three. By paraphrase, I mean take that prophecy off of the one page it appears on and ignore the banter that happens around it. YAY!!!
"A half-blood of the eldest gods, shall reach sixteen against all odds, And see the world in endless sleep, The hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap, A single choice shall end his days, Olympus to preserve or raze." (Riordan, Page 55, The Last Olympian).
That's basically the summary of the book that should have been present in the amazon summary, but whatever. Also, I've read the book and I'm still puzzling over how some of the lines could possibly fit into what unfolds in the book. Seriously. What?
Meh. Moving on.
So the book begins with Percy and Beckendorf (who was mentioned in passing in previous books, but the most noteworthy thing about him is that he is a son of Hephaestus, likes to tinker with things, and befriended the Hell Hound Mrs. O'Leary) going on a 'covert' mission to sabotage Luke/Kronos' cruise ship. They get on board and start placing Greek Fire in the boiler room, but some bad guys start coming. So Percy is like, "UH, UH, I GOT THIS! DISTRACTION ACTIVATE! ONWARD!" and basically charges through the ship drawing everyone's attention, but he falls neatly into a trap from Kronos. They fall into some banter, the ship blows up with everyone on it except for Percy, so Beckendorf is killed. That matters. No really it does I promise. It'll come in play in later.
So Percy gets blown off the ship, winds up in 'Daddy's Palace' as Tyson puts it and has a meet and greet with his Dad. He learns that things under the sea are awful, battles are everywhere and Poseidon's palace is slowly being destroyed despite their best efforts. There's a few cool details here and there, but basically Percy is shipped back to camp half-blood where he delivers the news of Beckendorf's death to the camp and also learns the actual prophecy. Now Beckendorf's death is a big deal because he was the head camper of his cabin and also the boyfriend of Silena, who's the head camper of the Aphrodite cabin. That's important.
So Clarisse is throwing a fit (and I'm sorely disappointed that the underlying explanation/brush off from characters is because she's a female (sexist pigs)) about her cabin not getting glory when glory is deserved. Blah. That's important. She and Silena are best friends and Clarisse has gone way too mother hen at Silena. It's a little creepy. Annabeth and Clarisse still have an understanding of sorts (seriously, there's a lot more FEMALES ARE MYSTERIOUS AND MAN SAYS WHAAAATTT at them kind of attitude in this book which is excessively obnoxious).
Percy and Annabeth are kind of at odds because she's miffed that he's been spending time with Rachel Elizabeth Dare to escape from camp.
OH HOLD UP. I SHOULD SMACK MYSELF. But I won't, don't worry.
This book takes place AFTER most of summer has happened and I think about five days before Percy's birthday. Let's ignore that this book basically takes place in five days. And the whole summer which is where the adventures usually happen. And that we basically know next to nothing about what truly happened during the summer except implied training and the recruiting of some half-bloods. ....yeah that happened. None of the school year was really addressed, Percy has kind of a 'sigh' statement about it but that's it. A little annoyed by that. The writing of this book seems like Riordan has been waiting to WRITE THIS BOOK FOREVER so he ignores small details that he never failed to mention in previous books. It's mildly annoying.
Alright whatever.
So Nico has been in touch with Percy (allegedly, I mean we KIND of saw at the end of The Battle of the Labyrinth but not really), and has this plan to dunk him in the River Styx like Achilles and what he suspects that Luke did in order to be able to hold Kronos essence being thingy. Percy is like NO THAT'S WEIRD HEEBIE GEEBIES (but he doesn't really explain his misgivings very well). So Nico convinces him and they take a weird adventure into the history of Luke and it's creepy. You can read the book to find that out.
This is about a third of the way through the book, so OFF TO SPOILER LAND WE GO. WHEEE.
So then Nico and Percy go see Percy's Mom and get her blessings before adventuring into the Underworld. I'm glossing over some stuff but with this one I'm going from memory about the book instead of constantly referring to it as I did in my previous ones. Sometimes it's just tedious to hunt for quotes or points in a book.
ANYWAYS. So they get to the Underworld and Percy is like MAN THIS IS CREEPY, SUP HADES, WAIT, HADES? and Hades is all BAHAHAHAHAHA, NO I WILL NOT HELP, SCREW MY BRETHREN TO THE STICKING PLACE and we get to see Persephone and her mother Demeter be like, "Ugh mortals, what's over there?" essentially. Very uncool. So Hades is like PERCY, IMMA TRAP YOU, Nico is like NOOOOO.....NOOOOOO and Percy is like WELL SCREW THIS NOISE and books it. Nico and Percy make it to the River Styx and Percy is like JUMP INTO THE WATERRR and gets his blessing and Annabeth is the thing he clings to as his mortal chain or some nonsense. Meh. So now he's all invincible except for one spot on the small of his back. Whoo.
They go back to camp, where they essentially rally the troops and run off to go defend Mount Olympus from Kronos' army that he's assembled there. There's a big battle, everyone gets wounded, someone gets killed, it's all fascinating. This spans for probably 7-8 chapters. And yeah, it's a BIG EPIC BATTLE with lots of COOL LITTLE THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN IT, but it's gets boring telling you who killed what and whatever. It was very exciting to read, and a lot of moments happened where I went YEAH! GET 'EM! at the book, but I would recount all the chapters before I felt satisfied, and no one REALLY WANTS THAT.
So the battle winds down to a scuffle between Luke and Kronos as Luke is like NOT ANNABETH, NO, MY BODY DANG IT, Kronos is like STUPID MORTAL HURK and Percy is like QUICK, STAB YOURSELF and Luke is like I'LL DIE WITH HONOR AND NOT ANNABETH BEING DEAD and stabs himself. It's pretty climatic and awesome. So they get rewards from the Gods and Percy's request is that all the gods/goddesses claim their sons/daughters that are spread around the world by the time the half-blood is thirteen. AND that they all get cabins as well so they stop cramming into Hermes' cabin.
So Rachel Elizabeth Dare was there for the battle and she hijacks a pegasus and goes to camp half-blood (which mortals are NOT supposed to be able to enter). She does a weird thing and becomes the Oracle of Delphi, effectively replacing the creepy mummy. Then she goes to live her life normally. I don't know either. She basically dumps Percy because the Oracle must remain a virgin (yeah, I got a little weirded out too). So Percy and Annabeth get together with all the kissing and the scene basically fades out all whimsical like, as if their troubles are over (AS IF).
Alright, I'm just done here. It's been a wonderful journey. I'm going to take a breather from Percy Jackson and read other things before getting back to it. I will post about The Heroes of Olympus series this month, so don't despair! :)
HURK. HURKKKK. I almost forgot to go over Percy's prophecy from the beginning of this post/book whatever, and the new prophecy we get! OOO PROPHECY COOKIES. Let's break the first prophecy down.
"A half-blood of the eldest gods"-This could have been someone other than the brothers (Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus) so I'm not entirely sure why that's SO important.
"shall reach sixteen against all odds" -Yeah, that happened sure.
" And see the world in endless sleep"- We did see Manhattan was put to sleep by Morpheus for Kronos' army, but that wasn't the WORLD. I'm a little miffed about that line.
"The hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap," -When this happened in the book (Luke stabbing himself) they explain why the blade he stabs himself is cursed, so that was fine.
"A single choice shall end his days"-ALRIGHT, THIS I DRAW ISSUE WITH. This line implies that the half-blood first spoken of will be the one to end, not the hero whose soul is reaped. So it really wants you to believe that PERCY should be dead and NOT Luke. SHAME ON YOU PROPHECY.
"Olympus to preserve or raze."- This line seems to imply again, the half-blood referred to in the first line will be the one to preserve or raze Olympus, but really it was all up to Luke pretty much. He made the ultimate choice to kill himself, Percy just gave him the blade to stab himself with. What the heck.
Alright, fine fine. Have a different interpretation? Comments people. Comments.
Grover has a weird EVERYTHING WORKED OUT FOR ME BECAUSE ONE SILLY SATYR DIED. WHEE. Which I hate. I hate that's how he set up for the next series. It just irks me that he seemed to be like, "I need Grover to get from Point A to Point B, but how....I KNOW. MURDER. HAHAHAHAHA." ...yeah.
New prophecy! Which spawns the next series, kind of. Well, basically yeah. Meh. GRAY AREA.
"Seven half-bloods shall answer the call. To storm or fire, the world must fall. An oath to keep with a final breath, And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death," (Riordan, Page 368, The Last Olympian).
It's so nicely vague for him. Or maybe he's trying to provide a very loose structure to the next series. Fine Riordan, give yourself some vague wiggle room. I'll read it anyways. I already have (except for The Mark of Athena).
Yes, I really do like these books a lot. I've just been dragging my feet about this review for some reason. I don't know why. Maybe because there's so much snow to play in outside. That's probably it. Hmmm...Snowman time? EXCELLENT.
....
Happy reading!
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