Amelia Lost

Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amerlia Earhart by Candace Fleming

Amazon summary, "From the acclaimed author of The Great and Only Barnum—as well as The Lincolns, Our Eleanor, and Ben Franklin's Almanac—comes the thrilling story of America's most celebrated flyer, Amelia Earhart. 

In alternating chapters, Fleming deftly moves readers back and forth between Amelia's life (from childhood up until her last flight) and the exhaustive search for her and her missing plane. With incredible photos, maps, and handwritten notes from Amelia herself—plus informative sidebars tackling everything from the history of flight to what Amelia liked to eat while flying (tomato soup)—this unique nonfiction title is tailor-made for middle graders." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

Pop quiz: What's the first thing you think of when you hear 'Amelia Earhart'?

...

For me, I immediately think of a woman who tried to fly around the world but crashed before she could make it.

There's also some vague association with the Bermuda triangle and her crash. That's a completely false association by the by, I think I just have it because of various fiction books I've read that have fictionally linked them together.

I have to give my spiel about history; I find it a tad boring to learn about history because history has usually been introduced to me through textbooks. Textbooks that are so horrendously boring that I'd rather read a children's cereal box for eight hours than the textbook for ten minutes.

History written in the fashion that this book is written in, well I really wished I had come across this sort of material earlier. The more good historical non-fiction books I've come across, the more I want to see what else is out there. This book was recommended to me by a very good friend, and I loved it.

So, the amazon summary actually did a good job. When I first tried to read this book I was a little put off by having to alternate between the action of losing Amelia Earhart, and learning about her life. As I got more into the book, I found that I wanted to learn much more about the woman herself rather than her disappearance.

Amelia Earhart is kind of inspiring for simply the way she defies the normal expectations of a female, she doesn't go out of her way to do it, she simply does what she wants to do because she wants to do it.

So if you want to learn more about Amelia Earhart, I strongly recommend this book. It doesn't really feel like learning, it feels like reading a good book.

I learned surprising tidbits about her, like how she cared for the sick and wounded returning from war, or that her mother had female pants fashioned for her and her sister when they were just kids. The little things that really paints the complete picture.

After reading this book, I can answer my own pop quiz more effectively: I think of Amelia Earhart as a woman who strove to take on the bits of the world that interested her. She also happened to fall in love with aviation and relentlessly sought out her passion.

Happy reading!

The Lost Hero

The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan

Confused as to why I'm talking about a mildly older book? DON'T BE. THE LINK OF ALMOST DETAILS

Didn't read The Olympians series? That's okay! I read them and reviewed them already! OH MAN, LIST OF LINKS GOOO!
Book #1: THE LIGHTNING THIEF
Book #2: THE SEA OF MONSTERS
Book #3: THE TITAN'S CURSE
Book #4: THE BATTLE OF THE LABYRINTH
Book #5: THE LAST OLYMPIAN

When I post about The Son of Neptune, I'm only going to link back to this post because all these links are getting slightly tedious and obnoxious.

What's that? Amazon summary? BAM. "Jason has a problem. He doesn’t remember anything before waking up on a school bus holding hands with a girl. Apparently she’s his girlfriend Piper, his best friend is a kid named Leo, and they’re all students in the Wilderness School, a boarding school for “bad kids.” What he did to end up here, Jason has no idea—except that everything seems very wrong.

Piper has a secret. Her father has been missing for three days, and her vivid nightmares reveal that he’s in terrible danger. Now her boyfriend doesn’t recognize her, and when a freak storm and strange creatures attack during a school field trip, she, Jason, and Leo are whisked away to someplace called Camp Half-Blood. What is going on? 
Leo has a way with tools. His new cabin at Camp Half-Blood is filled with them. Seriously, the place beats Wilderness School hands down, with its weapons training, monsters, and fine-looking girls. What’s troubling is the curse everyone keeps talking about, and that a camper’s gone missing. Weirdest of all, his bunkmates insist they are all—including Leo—related to a god. 
Rick Riordan, the best-selling author of the Percy Jackson series, pumps up the action and suspense in The Lost Hero, the first book in The Heroes of Olympus series.  Fans of demi-gods, prophesies, and quests will be left breathless--and panting for Book Two." AMAZON LINK OF THAT SUMMARY WASN'T AS BAD AS THE LAST ONEEE

Okay, I know in my last post I said I would take mini break and read two books, but this book was right there, and I knew Percy wasn't the voice in it, and after five books of Percy in an awesome world, I wanted some awesome world sans Percy. So I read it. Don't get me wrong, I normally like Percy, but I was a little overwhelmed by the Percy perspective about everything. So there. I read the book. NYAH.

So this book definitely mixes everything up a little bit. One, there's no Percy narration (small sigh of relief). Two, there's three different narrators (and they're all NEW characters! OOO). Three, the new characters react appropriately to being introduced to all the different stuff at camp and don't dwell too long on stuff we already know from the previous books. So refreshing. Again, I really did enjoy the last series, but awesome world sans Percy Jackson! I'm ready for Percy to be in the next book, but a little break, just a little one was nice.

ANYWAYS.

So the book begins with Jason narrating in his very amnesia riddled state. He becomes aware while holding Piper's hand and with Leo cracking jokes nearby. He's like, "Uh...what? WHAT IS THIS?" kind of deal. So he's trying to puzzle everything out and introduced to a school for 'troubled kids' and they're on a field trip to the grand canyon. Alright that's cool.

So Jason meanders around asking questions, being weird, and everyone else kind of giving him a little space and giving him weird looks since they're all under the impression that's been there all semester. Then Coach Hedge gives it away. Coach Hedge is their gruff teacher who is leading the field trip and asks Jason if he's the special package and reveals that the Mist is making everyone believe he's been there for a while. Then all hell breaks loose. Some angry wind spirits try to come and capture them and Jason reveals he's got a coin that turns into a sword, Coach Hedge reveals he's a satyr while trying to pummel the wind spirits while Piper and Leo are kind of thrown around but are also revealed to be demi-gods. Whew.

So Annabeth and Butch (no we've never met Butch before now, I didn't withhold a fun character on you) swoop in and save them after Coach Hedge is carried off by the wind spirits. They whisk them away to camp half-blood where they start to explain things, like how Percy Jackson is missing. They go through the whole, what is camp? What is demi-god? Who are you? Hello? process.

Leo gets claimed pretty much immediately and we're taken with his narration through the Hephaestus cabin which is allegedly cursed since Beckendorf died and they reveal that a dragon is on the loose in the woods.

With the switching narrations we've learned a few important things about the three characters: Leo believes he accidentally murdered his mother while also possessing the ability to make fire (a very rare gift that Hephaestus kids SOMETIMES get, mostly in times of great peril). Jason is a blank slate, not dumb, just doesn't remember crap, or the stuff he does remember is all in Roman reference instead of Greek; he also speaks Latin. Piper's Dad has been captured by someone or something and she is led to believe that she needs to lead Jason to her Dad's captors in order to get her Dad back, but that might lead to his death.

Meh.

It's also revealed that Olympus has been closed for a month and even Dionysus has been recalled up to Mount Olympus. None of the God's are answering prayers or anything, but they are still claiming their kids. It's also learned that Hera has been kidnapped and Chiron gets all white-faced and like I SWORE ON THE RIVER STYX HYPERVENTILATE IN MY BRAINNNN. Yeah.

So a quest is born! The prophecy for the quest is: "Child of lightning, beware the earth, The giants' revenge the seven shall birth, The forge and dove shall break the cage, And death unleash through Hera's rage," (Riordan, Page 128, The Lost Hero).

Jason is chosen to lead the quest because it's already known that he's a child of Zeus (did I mention that he can summon lightning and fly via controlling wind? yeah, he did that). Jason asks Leo to go with him as long as Leo can provide a ride (cue psychotic mechanical dragon), and the head counselor of the Aphrodite cabin, Drew, volunteers to go, but Piper gets all up in arms since Drew is awful. (Drew took over after Silena died.) Piper gets claimed by Aphrodite by getting glammed out (amazing hair, make up, clothes etc) and it is also known that she can charmspeak (although she doesn't really have control over it).

So they get all set to go on their quest and Annabeth is like IMMA GO LOOK FOR PERCY. NYEH. DERP. That's pretty much for Annabeth in this book. We also learn that Jason has a sister! Thalia. I know, WHAT? But it's cool.

So Leo immediately took off into the woods to find the mechanical dragon that keeps terrorizing the camp, captures it with an already lain trap, fixes it, and it takes him to bunker 9 where he puts wings on it.

SPOILER LAND TIME GO.

So Leo returns to camp with the dragon, Leo, Piper, and Jason all take off to see the north wind Boreas to get help on their quest. They meet up with Boreas and meet his children of demented integrity (the only one that actually matters right now is Khione as she comes into play later, the other ones seem to be there for comic relief). Boreas is like WHOA JASON, and the element of Greek vs Roman elements of the gods is introduced. It's pretty cool and there's a lot of detail and explanation in the book about it. So you should read it. Eh, eh?

There's a really creepy bit with cyclops, but due to my love of Tyson, I'm just going to gloss over it. There was something really creepy with the cyclops. Moving on.

So they escape the cyclops only to run into Medea. This is the clue that evil mortals are returning due to a more powerful force than Hades. This is the spot of the book where they run into a lot of temptation, testing of loyalties and start to really discover their powers (especially in the case of Piper). It's also kind of a humbling experience for them as well. They kind of have a battle which winds up with Medea getting doused in a whole bunch of different potions and the whole place magically exploding.

They manage to escape, fly/crash land into Midas and Leo gets a visit from his Dad in a dream. They're beginning to notice that monsters don't stay dead, evil mortals are being let out, and the doors of the dead are open so to speak. Again, playing back to the Medea theme. So Festus bit the dust and his head remained but Leo pleaded with his Father to take it to safety and Hephaestus presumably does. Midas turns Leo and Piper into golden statues (because that's kind of his thing) and Jason saves them. They get the heck out of there.

So they seek out Aeolus for help and he's CRAZYYY and they learn the information they need from him before Aeolus received orders from SOMEONE MYSTERIOUS (cue the villain for this series-no it's not Kronos-he got all stabbed last series) and tries to kill them. They're flung out of the dude's castle and Aphrodite makes sure they wind up safely in a diner after having a magic dream chat with Piper. During this dream chat, Piper figures out their big bad foe is actually the Earth itself, Gaea. It's like an 'oh crap, crapped myself' kind of moment for everyone because they're literally going to fight THE EARTH. Yeah, take it in for a moment.

So they proceed to go to the mountain where Piper's Dad is kept, manage to get him free and plummet a Giant (giant is the new titan, easiest explanation) into the earth. It's a pretty cool battle scene, but again, read the book. I'm not going to recount EVERY detail.

Piper's Dad is all delirious and confused and traumatized and they manage to get him to his private plane and give him a potion that Aphrodite gave to Piper to wipe his recent memory (like the week he was captured). Coach Hedge goes with him to protect him and the three heroes go onward to free Hera.

Alright, back to the prophecy. So the line, "The forge and dove shall break the cage" comes into play here as they get into the Wolf Manor where Hera is being imprisoned and Piper with Leo work on breaking the cage. Leo uses a saw, Piper charmspeaks it into going away. Meanwhile, big battle takes place with Leo and the Hunters (YAY HUNTERS! AKA THALIA & CO!) but the main point is, they get Hera free. A big nasty Giant is also summoned in this time, but mostly Hera is free. WHEW.

A lot of things are revealed about the difference between Thalia and Jason and their mutual crazy mother (which is pretty neat) and Hera claims Jason as her champion and takes on a weird bitter hag kind of persona and send them back to camp half-blood sans the Hunters as they still have things to hunt or something. They appear in the middle of dinner with their feet in people's food which is pretty funny.

So they tell them everything that happened and they deduce that there are actually two demi-god camps; one for the Greek aspects of the gods and one for the Roman aspects of the gods. Jason is from the Roman camp, and has been sent in place of Percy, and they believe that Percy has been sent to the Roman camp which is why Annabeth can't find him.

THE END of this book. Essentially.

There are of course a lot of neat little things that happened in this book like Piper randomly spouting Cherokee folklore at the readers and a lot of fun moments from Coach Hedge and Leo. I strongly recommend the book series.

Happy reading!

The Last Olympian

The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan

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!

Pork and Mushrooms

So I love the dish in most Chinese restaurants that is called "Pork and Mushrooms". I am a little mad that there doesn't seem to be any concrete recipe out there that I can find to make such a dish, so I took it upon myself to try to make it. THIS IS AN EXPERIMENTAL DISH THAT I HAVEN'T MASTERED MAKING YET. THERE. DISCLAIMER.

It was good, it wasn't quite the same, but I still enjoyed it.

So here's what I did.

Ingredients:
-2 lbs Boneless pork chops
-16 ounces of fresh mushrooms
-2 little bundles of green onions
-10 ounces of plum duck sauce
-1 tablespoon of olive oil - I'm only putting this on here because that's what I would use to cook with if I didn't have a super duper non-stick pan of justice. If you have an AMAZING non-stick pan of justice, then omit olive oil.

It's pretty basic. BUT I MADE IT MORE INTERESTING WITH PICTURES. WHEEE.

Ingredients! ASSEMBLE! There's actually twenty ounces of plum duck sauce here, but I only used 10 ounces. I just like to be cautious and get two.

This is what I meant by two little bundles, I don't know EXACTLY how much this is, but this is the idea.

So I started by cutting up my green onions like so; omitting the base where it's white/light green in color.

Then I took the cap off of the stems of the mushrooms. I personally don't really like the stems, so I just tossed them out. I also broke the mushroom heads in half. If you have an unsavory looking mushroom head, just toss it out.

How the pork chop started (left), after the fat was trimmed (middle), and after it was cut up into bite sized pieces.

I put the cut up pork and cut up green onions in the pan to cook.

A blurry picture of it cooking. I cooked it on medium-low heat to ensure that the pork was cooked.

Mmmm...cook that pork.

So my pork cooked. I added the mushrooms and 10 ounces of plum duck sauce at the same time.

I covered it to cook it, stirring occasionally for about ten minutes. I kept it on a scale of 1-8, between 2 & 3. I checked it and it got kind of stupid watery looking. I freaked out a little and threw some salt in. Probably a quarter of a teaspoon's worth.

It was still pretty watery when I finished, so my advice if you don't want it watery, cook the pork and drain it before adding the mushrooms and sauce. Pork tends to be a watery meat. My end dish looked a little like soup, and for some reason that picture did NOT upload. *grumpy noises*.

I solved my soup problem just by using a strained spatula to get it into my bowl. It was pretty delicious. I added a little extra plum duck sauce to my strained bowl for a little extra flavor. Because I'm cool like that.

My end results from this experimental dish is that cook the pork longer next time, drain any water after pork is cooked before adding mushrooms and sauce, and then maybe sauce it a little extra at the end.

Cooking isn't an exact science to me. I like to dabble to see what makes it taste better (or sometimes horribly taste worse), and then go from there. LIFE EXPERIENCE. WHOO.

Try this recipe and made it differently? Let me know in a comment! COMMENTS ARE COOL. Eh? Eh?
OR. If you know the REAL recipe on how to make the chinese food dish commonly referred to as "Pork and Mushrooms", PLEASE LET ME KNOW. I will try to make it and post my results here.
...

Happy cooking!

The Battle of the Labyrinth

The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan

Confused as to why I'm reviewing this older book? WONDER NO MORE! CLICK THE LINK OF MOSTLY DETAILS

Missed the first three books in the series? YOU DON'T HAVE TO! I REVIEWED THEM AS WELL!!!
Book #1: THE LIGHTNING THIEF
Book #2: THE SEA OF MONSTERS
Book #3: THE TITAN'S CURSE

...alright, business done. TIME FOR REVIEWING ANTICS.

Amazon summary to get this going, "Percy Jackson isn’t expecting freshman orientation to be any fun.  But when a mysterious mortal acquaintance appears on campus, followed by demon cheerleaders, things quickly move from bad to diabolical. 

In this latest installment of the blockbuster series, time is running out as war between the Olympians and the evil Titan lord Kronos draws near. Even the safe haven of Camp Half-Blood grows more vulnerable by the minute as Kronos’s army prepares to invade its once impenetrable borders. To stop them, Percy and his demigod friends must set out on a quest through the Labyrinth—a sprawling underground world with stunning surprises at every turn. Full of humor and heart-pounding action, this fourth book promises to be their most thrilling adventure yet." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

Alright, something I'm going to shame face about that I didn't touch on in my last review of The Titan's Curse, is that Percy was saved by a mortal while he was at the Hoover Dam (I didn't even mention the Hoover Dam in my last review because it's such a 'nothing super important happens here, but look! Historical monument!'). The mortal's name is Rachel Elizabeth Dare (which is spelled out for us numerous times in this book, probably once or twice in the last book) and she has a rare mortal ability; she has clear vision. Clear vision is when she can see through the mist regardless of how much mist is used. Percy asked his mother about it at one point who admitted to have much stronger clear vision when she was younger, but it has faded over the years.

That will come into play later.

I was going to do this by chapter to make it more thorough, but then I felt like it was writing a college paper for a class, and that's NOT what I want to do. So have some random meanderings again. :)

So the book begins with Percy attending an orientation for his new school that he'll start in the fall; it just happens to be the school that his mom's boyfriend Paul runs. At orientation, his hackles are up as if he's suspicious he's in danger and he runs into Rachel Elizabeth Dare. As I said above, she was in the last book for a five second scene but helped him escape the Hoover Dam. During orientation, some cheerleaders come out, Rachel gets all white in the face and basically books it. Percy follows and they get cornered in the band room by a couple of cheerleaders who turn out to be Empousai, servants of Hecate.

Now this doesn't seem like a big deal, but it reveals a major clue about the political battle in Olympus. Hecate is a minor goddess, and she's probably siding with Kronos if her servants are attacking Percy, and a mortal. This kind of makes you wonder, what other minor gods/goddesses are siding with Kronos? Who exactly is sizing up for battle here?

So, Percy and Rachel manage to escape and meet up with Annabeth who was supposed to meet Percy to go see a movie. With the whole fleeing thing, and Percy fleeing with a girl, Annabeth isn't too happy with him. Percy is a mass confusion of 'boy becoming man, what is romance?' and kind of tries to be nicer to Annabeth who is angry for some reason he can't discern. Rachel stayed behind at the school to try and explain things and why Percy fled.

They make it to camp Half-blood where the dragon guarding the golden fleece gets a little scene of Annabeth scratching it's chin and Percy remarking, MY HOW BIG IT'S GOTTEN in his brain. This might be relevant in the next book, but it's just a red herring in this book.

So Percy and Annabeth make their way around camp, Annabeth left Percy to his own devices and Percy meets a giant hell hound by the name of Mrs. O'Leary. Quintus, a son of Ares is the master of the hell hound and a surprise to Percy as he never considered being an adult and a half-blood. Tyson is back, Grover is given a week deadline to find the lost God of the Wilds, Pan, and Percy received an Iris message from someone depicting Nico speaking with a ghost. Camp is wonderful as usual.

So it turns out that Annabeth and Clarisse have been working together to investigate the Labyrinth; the place that Daedalus originally kept the Minotaur for King Minos; the King of Crete. Backstory on Daedalus; he's the guy who invents a lot of really nifty things and while trying to escape King Minos, he crafted wings for his son Icarus and himself, but the wax didn't hold and Icarus died during the escape attempt. Tragedy for everyone!

Anyways, so Clarisse went on a secret mission for Chiron last year into the Labyrinth and discovered that the Kronos army is planning on using it. The Labyrinth has just kept building itself since it's incarnation and moves with Olympus; so it's under the United States and links to anywhere in the United States. It's basically an express highway from anywhere to anywhere as long as you don't fall prey to the traps and monsters that lurk in the Labyrinth. Also, the Labyrinth can read your thoughts and try to trick you. People go insane down there. More tragedy for everyone! YAY!!!!....wait, no. ...NOOOO.

Annabeth believes that Daedalus can help them against Kronos, and that Pan is underground. We're going to speed ahead a little bit to boil it down that Annabeth, Tyson, Grover, and Percy all go on the quest into the Labyrinth. Annabeth reveals only pieces of the prophecy she received from the Oracle about her quest and she's very reluctant to give up one line of it. That will come into play later.

NOW, this is a third of the way through the book. These 'little' books pack a lot in such a short amount of time. SO OFF TO SPOILER LAND WE GO!!!

SPOILER LAND ALERT. MAKING IT ALL NOTICEABLE AND SUCH. URNF.

Alright, so the first chunk of Labyrinth adventures actually falls in the first third of the book, but I didn't want to deal with it before spoiler land was declared. BLOO HOO HOO, whatever.

So the quest undertakers get a visit from Hera who grants one wish and spews advice at them. She has a high and mighty attitude because, she's a goddess, but also because she seems to feel very serene in the fact that she is the only Olympian God that doesn't have a bunch of half-mortal children running around. Some of Hera's advice includes: seek out Hephaestus, beware of the minor gods, and the wish requested, she told them that Percy already knew the answer (which any reader would know if they were paying attention COUCH RACHEL ELIZABETH DARE COUGH COUGH) but Percy is like LOL WHAT? BOY NOISES. DERP.

Another tidbit about the Labyrinth adventure, is they managed to free a hundred handed one; the last one left, Briarers. Briares is Tyson's Hero, capital H just for Tyson, but he's lost faith in himself. They manage to escape his jailer and get back into the labyrinth, but Briares has lost himself, and so loses himself in the Labyrinth. No, that's not a whimsical metaphor, I mean he literally has a moment of, "I'M NOT GOOD FOR ANYONE ANYMORE, YOU CAN'T CONVINCE ME *leaves down a random Labyrinth corridor*". Really Briarers? Four beings just risked their lives for you, and you're going to run away. GENIUS.

A cool little background story device that Riordan keeps using is to make Percy dream of things that have passed, things that are happening right now, and sometimes dreams where he is communicated with or can communicate with someone. There are many of these infrequently throughout the book and I don't find them tedious at all, I kind of wished we were shown his dreams more.

ANYWAYS, so they cruise through the Labyrinth some more and they wander out onto a ranch where a lot of unsavory creatures are kept (such as flesh eating horses, and sacred cattle among others). They meet up with Nico again who's still kind of half-crazy from listening to the ghost of King Minos, and the dudes who run the ranch basically threaten to have none of their crap and take them to Kronos. Percy is like, WAIT WAIT, BARTER? and agrees to clean up all of the horse poop in the flesh eating horse pen if they let all of them go (including Nico). The dude is like BAHAHA SUREEEEE and gives him till sunset. Now Hercules already solved this once by using a river to clean out all the muck, but the river naiad is like GET AWAY FROM MY RIVER, YOU GONNA DAMAGE MY ECO-SYSTEM. RADSAFADFDFH. Percy is like, geez, okay okay, and then the naiad tells him that the water is within him (essentially and complete with metaphors and blah). Percy goes, "Hmmm...." and kind of digs up some sea shells that were in the ground and throws them in the pen. Sea water erupts from the seashells and starts to just take the poop underground in a sense. So Percy throws all the seashells all over the pen, makes the horses upset because they don't like baths, and clears out the pen. He also mentions a weird tugging sensation in his stomach.

So he goes back just in time, tells him he succeeded, the evil guy who runs the ranch is like, "Sweet, but I didn't swear on the River Styx, so sucks to be you" and tries to capture Percy. Percy and the evil ranch guy's henchmen are like DUDE, NOT COOL and kill him. Henchmen kind of sees the light, agrees to let Nico stay, and the quest undertakers are on their way again. They summon Bianca while at the ranch, but she basically tells Nico to stop trying to resurrect her and that Percy is a good dude so stop being a brat towards him.

So they go through the Labyrinth, Percy has some more dreams about Luke, they make their way to Hephaestus (which I can never spell right on the first try for some reason, damn you tricky god name!) who tells them to gain his favor they need to figure out who's using his forge in Mount St. Helens (a big mountain in the United States). They're like SURE, WHATEVER, WON'T BE TOO HARD. They go, Tyson and Grover go off on their own because they scented Pan, and so Percy and Annabeth go on to the forge. There they discover that the creatures that made weapons before the cyclops, the telkhines (they're like black sea serpent dog things), who are all mad because the Olympian gods use their weapons but then cast them out for using MAGIC. On a sidenote, I'm not entirely sure what the difference between magic and godly power is; magic seems to be godly power that the immortals don't want being used, but they can use it whenever they want. Um. I don't know.

Percy summons the water within, basically blows everything up because water+lava=BADDDD. Typhon, the most feared being besides Kronos was sleeping under their and might be awake now. Whoops. So Percy is dumped on Calypso's island where he's like MAN SHE'S PRETTY, OH GOD EVERYTHING HURTS, decides to leave and hates to make Calypso all sad because she fell in love with him for the two weeks he was there recooperating. Now the main reason I mention Calypso is because she brings up the point that she was banished for supporting her family (ATLAS, BECAUSE ZOE NIGHTSHADE LAST BOOK WAS ALSO DAUGHTER OF ATLAS, NURRR) but she didn't do much or something and the gods kind of took pity on her and imprisoned her on a beautiful island where their are nice creatures and a garden for her to tend. And also invisible servants. Her curse is that the only visitors she'll get (besides gods) are heroes she'll fall in love with but who will leave her. The island is also cursed to never accept a man twice onto the island, he can only travel their once. (In my opinion she should start a book club with the minor goddesses, but whatever, moving on.) Basically Percy is like, "Yeah, I fight for my Dad because he's my Dad...and I guess he's right. But Olympus kind of sucks as a whole, but my Dad *quaffles*". He leaves the island, goes back to camp and everyone there is like OMGWTF PERCY YOU'RE ALIVE? BLOO HOO HOO YAY!

I feel like this is going on for forever so let's wrap up the last section of the book.

Major battle happens at camp, some of the campers die, Briares gets some faith in himself and helps them win the battle, Quintus turns out to be Daedalus, doesn't really help them much, helps them more by dying and collapsing the labyrinth. Briares goes down to help in Poseidon's forges where the other cyclops are, Grover, Tyson, Percy, Annabeth, and Nico found Pan (before the Labyrinth collapsed whoops) and Pan was like I'M DYING, LET ME DIE DAMN YOU and tells them that it's up to everyone else to protect the wild places. Grover gets all WAH but delivers the message to the other Satyrs, the elders are like BLASPHEMY but the others ones are like ALRIGHT, LET'S DO THIS, and get down to business. Rachel Elizabeth Dare came back into play and led them through the labyrinth with her clear vision and escaped with them and she's fine.

Also, it turns out that Luke sacrificed himself to Kronos essentially and became a living vessel for him. So now Kronos is in charge of Luke's body, and Luke is still questionably there. Annabeth hasn't given up hope on Luke yet.

At the very end of the book, Percy's Mom throws a birthday party for him and Tyson, Paul Blofis (the mom's boyfriend) all attend and play games. I want to quote the book because I laughed out loud at this, "We ate blue cake and ice cream until we couldn't eat anymore. Then we played a bunch of cheesy party games like charades and Monopoly. Tyson didn't get charades. He kept shouting the answer he was trying to mime, but it turned out he was really good at Monopoly. He knocked me out in the game in the first five rounds and started bankrupting my mom and Paul," (Riordan, Pages 358-359; The Battle of the Labyrinth). I love that paragraph simply because it seems so REAL and family-like. It was rather touching and FUNNY. So there you go. (Percy has turned fifteen now in case you're keeping tabs.)

Poseidon visits during the party, hears Percy's whole story and gives him a sand dollar as a birthday present. He also mentions that the war came to him first at sea and he's giving it all he's got to protect the land from typhoons and hurricanes and what not. So they're already at war.

The party winds down, Percy sequesters a piece of cake to his room, roots around in his pocket and finds that Calypso left him a flower to plant his own garden with. He plants the flower and Nico scares the crap out of him as Nico is chilling out on his fire escape. Nico is like "I HAVE IMPORTANT THINGS TO TELL YOU-Is that birthday cake?" Percy is like, "Whoa, dude, come inside, eat the cake and let's talk."

Book ends.

So things we know so far...
Kronos is actually in a biped form now via Luke's body.
We STILL don't know the exact prophecy about the child of the big three and when they turn sixteen.
Annabeth revealed her full prophecy which I'm going to paraphrase, "You shall delve into darkness of the endless maze, The dead, the traitor, and the lost one raise. You shall rise or fall by the ghost king's hand, And the child of Athena's final stand, Destroy with a hero's final breath, And lose a love to worse than death." Percy and Annabeth spend pages 348 and 349 talking about it and dissect the entire prophecy for you. Now the line we care about right now is "And lose a love to worse than death" which Annabeth thinks is about Luke.
Dionysus confirmed that the minor gods/goddesses are indeed switching over to Kronos's side.
Nico and Percy are becoming friends? Eh?
Annabeth and Percy might have a romantic relationship trying to blossom (she kissed him at one point this book).

Everyone might die.

The end.

JUST KIDDING. There's another book in this series, and then there's another series after this series. EXCELLENT.

On a side note, this is probably my favorite book in this series. There's a lot of stuff that happens, some great characterization, and a lot of coming together of things mentioned in the previous books, and things mentioned now that will into play later. As an aspiring writer, I find this book rather inspiring.

Happy reading!