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A review by writervid
The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan
4.0
I'm kind of just tearing through these at this point, but some thoughts:
- This is the first time we get to see all the major characters (Tyson is a vital character! Who no one talks about!) together on a quest
- It's also the first time we get to see Annabeth on her own quest that she leads, which is really cool. It provides the most growth and challenges to Annabeth that we've seen. Although she opened herself up to being friends with Percy in the first book, she's a very rigid thinker and has a lot of pride, and this is the first time we really get to see this challenged in the series
- Similarly, I loved seeing Percy become more confident in this book. In The Titan's Curse, Chiron tells him that he and Thalia are incredibly similar, Percy is just less sure of himself. It's pretty sick to see him come into his own (while also being incredibly oblivious my god)
- There's a lot more nuance to this book than previous ones about what's evil, and why you're motivated to fight on which side. It feels darker because of that than previous books do, although the Titan's Curse leads to that territory. I know people have said that they dislike how that removes some of the humor, but I'm actually okay with it. It feels like the series is maturing and growing up.
- The Rachel and Annabeth situation feels very...girl hate to me? I get both sides of it, but it sucks that the two major female characters in the series automatically dislike each other over a guy. Like...why?
- This is the first time we get to see all the major characters (Tyson is a vital character! Who no one talks about!) together on a quest
- It's also the first time we get to see Annabeth on her own quest that she leads, which is really cool. It provides the most growth and challenges to Annabeth that we've seen. Although she opened herself up to being friends with Percy in the first book, she's a very rigid thinker and has a lot of pride, and this is the first time we really get to see this challenged in the series
- Similarly, I loved seeing Percy become more confident in this book. In The Titan's Curse, Chiron tells him that he and Thalia are incredibly similar, Percy is just less sure of himself. It's pretty sick to see him come into his own (while also being incredibly oblivious my god)
- There's a lot more nuance to this book than previous ones about what's evil, and why you're motivated to fight on which side. It feels darker because of that than previous books do, although the Titan's Curse leads to that territory. I know people have said that they dislike how that removes some of the humor, but I'm actually okay with it. It feels like the series is maturing and growing up.
- The Rachel and Annabeth situation feels very...girl hate to me? I get both sides of it, but it sucks that the two major female characters in the series automatically dislike each other over a guy. Like...why?