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Review: #318
Title: The Mark of Athena
Series: Heroes of Olympus - 3rd book
Author: Rick Riordan
Read Before: no
My Comments: If you’ve been following the Percy Jackson series, the Heroes of Olympus series and The Kane Chronicles series, chances are, you’re already wiped out with Rick Riordan’s work. The structure of the book does not change at all here, and for the first time, I’m feeling a bit drained and tired of his writing style. From the very start, it seems to all be the same. The quest that has a deadline of a few days, powerful main characters that can achieve practically everything, characters from Greek and Roman myths appearing and acting in very unusual manners, and my “favourite”: characters keeping secrets, and every moment they want to spill it out, they get interrupted. Thankfully, it’s not as bad as Son of Neptune where those secrets were revealed right at the end (it made the journey very agonizing because you know it is important yet the author just refuses to tell you after the character attempts to confess multiple times); Mark of Athena reveals them relatively early on. Following on from the cliffhanger of The Son of Neptune, the two camps meet, but the resolution and what happened didn't feel satisfying (there just has to be that one annoying guy to hate…). I guess it was like it wasn't worth the wait and not as big of a thing as it was hyped up. In terms of the plot of this book, it’s very much the standard affair, the characters have to go and save a fellow demigod, but one thing that’s not as good here is that there are seven demigods to follow. This meant that the author has tried to tell the story from seven different viewpoints at a time, while this works most of the time; it feels as if he is overwhelmed and he loses focus. Many a time, it felt that he forced that character’s viewpoint in. The plot was too bulked up by too many subplots and relationships; it caused a lot of ‘noise’ and made it very ‘busy’. That’s not to say the book wasn't enjoyable, but it lacked any sort of complexity as there was not enough space for the encounters, most of them were very straightforward and nothing like the sheer awesomeness of previous encounters in the Percy Jackson series (lacking the charm, as they say). Monsters/mythical characters encounters aren’t as intricate or clever now, especially the big show-off between Annebeth and her mortal enemy. You could what was going to happen a mile away and were very typical, there’s a lack of innovation, so to speak. The Mark of Athena quest was a lame concept. I like Percy, but just like the previous book, he’s been downgraded. While he powers are growing, his character and attitude seems to be very weak and not at all like the confident and arrogant character we’ve come to love. That said, the final twist at the ending was great, and I thought it was excellent. It was surprisingly (in a way, you suspected what would happen and it did happen, but there was something extra tagging along) and things are clearer now. I’m not sure how the pair will survive (that will be an interesting read) but it is a good ending to the book.
Rating: 7/10