A review by katymul
The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I almost feel like this book had no business being as good as it is. So many conclusions of long and sprawling series like the first Percy Jackson quintet struggle to tie everything up in a satisfying way...The Last Olympian proves that it is not impossible. Riordan almost makes it look easy!

Also impressive is how Riordan managed to make a book that is mostly an extended battle sequence feel like...not that. Realizing how quickly we arrived at the Battle of Manhattan toward which the series has been building for four books, I was concerned that I was in for the book-equivalent of an endless car chase in an action movie. The variety of storytelling techniques, the way so many different ways of fighting for your friends and family played out, the balance of emotional and life-and-death stakes...it was all so well-balanced that it never felt like a slog through another battle sequence or like character development was being short-changed.

I'm also a sucker for one of the rarest feats to pull off: a prophecy that is justifiably vague. The surface, most-directly translated meaning of the Great Prophecy set in motion the necessary pieces for the true meaning of the lines to happen. Our hero, Percy, has all this while been a feint, a distraction to clear the way and draw the fire for Luke and Annabeth to play out the climactic moment. The choice that saves Olympus is a personal one, with Annabeth Chase's whole life as the collateral and Luke Castellan of all people at the pivot point. Percy is the support, the warleader on the ground, the inspiration, and the distraction to keep Kronos from figuring out how vulnerable he is to a sixteen year old girl wielding an old dagger against his legendary scythe. Beautiful.