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betweentheshelves's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Anyway! The tone of this one is fun, with Apollo trying to adapt to his human form. You get cameos from a lot of favorite characters from previous series, which I always enjoy. Interconnected series are always fun for me.
Riordan is also great at making stories with high stakes still feel somewhat lighthearted. Like, there are some dark moments in this (because Greek mythology is dark at times, man), but it doesn't feel too bogged down. It's an overall fun read, and I'm looking forward to hearing more from Apollo.
Also, starting each chapter with a haiku? I loved it. Added to the overall tone of the book. On to the next one!
Graphic: Violence, Emotional abuse, and Child abuse
Moderate: Death of parent and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Vomit
sadie_g's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Violence and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury and War
Minor: Death and Death of parent
nevermoregothic's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Moderate: Gaslighting and Emotional abuse
Minor: Child abuse, Child death, and Death of parent
percyjacksonfan's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Child abuse
Moderate: Child abuse
Minor: Death of parent and Child abuse
eclectic_hellscape's review against another edition
3.5
Graphic: Fatphobia
Moderate: Violence and Death of parent
swiftie_bookworm's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Minor: Car accident, Child abuse, Toxic relationship, Death, Gaslighting, Murder, and Death of parent
jasmineslibraryy's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
apollo is a little annoying but he’s also funny as hell and he would love taylor swift. also WILL + NICO <3 and i forgot how much i love meg
speed run finishing the series before i get my goblin hands on the sun and the star 💫
Graphic: War, Vomit, Physical abuse, Murder, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Torture, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Death of parent, Death, Child abuse, and Animal death
Moderate: Kidnapping
Minor: Child death, Cursing, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Colonisation
all the traditional percy jackson warningshales_1243's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Body horror, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, Kidnapping, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal death, Fatphobia, and Blood
Minor: War and Slavery
mengzhenreads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Child abuse, Violence, and Emotional abuse
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Death of parent and Murder
finnft4's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
I mean, it's very similar to how I felt about Blood of Olympus, which I already don't like. It feels like this book was written shortly after that one, in a not great way. They both have very similar issues.
Apollo as a narrator is a bit fun. Then it gets tiring. Half of his dialogue is some sort of outdated pop culture reference. Some people complained about his bisexuality being preachy and overdone at times, but it only felt really intolerable at maybe one certain passage. Some other times felt unnecessary, but they were negligible. And I appreciate the effort. As for his personality, he sort of goes back and forth between being a narcissist and then 180-ing into feeling completely worthless, neither with cool-down. His sudden care for other people that springs out near the middle of the book feels very fast, especially with how comically high his ego was at the start. But not to worry. A couple of throwaway "I'm still the best" lines solves that problem immediately /s. Apollo is egotistical, but not in a particularly entertaining way. And this isn't an archetype problem either. I love egotistical asshole characters; one of my favorite characters period is Emperor Kuzco from the cultural masterpiece ENG. The difference between the two is that Kuzco, even though he displays very similar behavior to Apollo, is extremely entertaining without being annoying. Kuzco also has lower depths of assholery than Apollo (that he still BELIEVABLY grows from), who just occasionally thinks back on the times when he had little regard for mortal lives and then goes, "that was a bad thing to do". Such moral complexity /s. Apollo has his moments, but he failed to be a super engaging character to me. Because of that, I really didn't care about the story (which is not solely his fault, either: story and its characters are just boring).
It's strange. I don't hate the book. I dislike it, I guess...? I just have absolutely zero feelings on it solely because of how disengaged I was with it. I didn't care for any character. Most of them act the exact same. The only time I did was when a character was being especially annoying. Those were the two personalities in this book - nothing or obnoxious. There were some fun comic relief moments between the campers occasionally, but it's not enough to save anything lmao. Honestly, a meteor could've hit Camp Half-Blood and killed all the major characters in this book, and I would have absolutely no reaction. I was completely stone-faced most of the time while reading. The villain is also a Redditor, which is really the nail in the coffin.
Plot-wise, nothing particularly interesting or notable happened in this book. Everything felt like something I've already read in another book - a book that did it in a better, more interesting way. There were some moments that were a bit funny (a lot of the moments intended to be funny felt annoying), but it mostly felt like that hazy feeling you get when zoning out. Which I did a lot while reading this. For such a short book, I took a lot of breaks from reading it. The main thing that kept me going was the fact that my next book is a Magnus Chase one (I LOVED the first one, so thinking about this helped tremendously) and the hope that the rest of this series will be better. I don't really care to finish it, but I will, just because I bought the rest of the pentalogy. It’ll probably get better based on the general trend of the ratings but as of now it’s mediocre. And I suppose you could call me ridiculous because I'm a 17-year-old criticizing a middle-grade book, but I'll remind you I'm one cynical POS and this is just my nature. I still think the author's good, and overall his books are some of the best I've read - they're all fun, even the weaker ones. I just enjoy things by picking them apart lmao. Anyway, after my MCGA break is the Dark Prophecy, which is rated even worse than this. So jazzed /s
[1] PJO: The Last Olympian
[2] HoO: The House of Hades
[3] HoO: The Mark of Athena
[4] MCGA: The Sword of Summer
[5] PJO: The Lightning Thief
[6] PJO: The Titan's Curse
[7] HoO: The Son of Neptune
[8] PJO: The Battle of the Labyrinth
[9] HoO: The Lost Hero
[10] PJO: The Sea of Monsters
[11] HoO: The Blood of Olympus
Graphic: Gaslighting
Moderate: Death of parent, Murder, Body shaming, and Violence
Minor: Child abuse