Review: #492
Title: The Blood of Olympus
Series: Heroes of Olympus - 5th and final book
Author: Rick Riordan
Read Before: no
Comments: At last, it has arrived, the final book in the Heroes of Olympus series and the final book (for now) in the Percy Jackson universe. A lot is at stake in this final adventure, delivering the Athena Parthenos back to Camp Half-Blood and the seven demigods travelling to Athens to defeat Gaia (who seems unstoppable, since she is the earth itself). Unfortunately, the world is become stale and it shows. It feels as if the author is trying very hard to impress and surprise the reader but doesn’t succeed as for each event he throws at the heroes, its feels predictable and lacking ingenuity or cleverness. Similarly with the humor, it feels as if the author is trying too hard to be funny, with the result of it feeling tired and cliché. A lot of contemporary references are thrown in, sometimes a bit too obviously, and it doesn’t work well, sticking out like a sore thumb. Likewise, there seemed to be an effort to build up to an epic climax, which, unfortunately, failed. The story is told in multiple viewpoints: mainly Jason, Piper and Leo in the travel to Athens to stop Gaia side; and Reyna and Nico in the Athena Parthenos side. While both subplots are important, it felt stretched this way, especially when it feels as if one subplot has filler in order to show something is happening at the same time. Despite all the author’s efforts, you just don’t grow enough attachment to the characters. You know they are going to survive and with all the talk of deaths and sacrifices, you wished that it would happen already to save the agony of them going on and on about it. Even when the death happens, you know that they are not fully dead and that somehow they will come back to life (especially when there have been extremely heavy hints on what they were aiming to do afterwards). Oh, and in case you were in anticipation of an epic climatic final battle in the same vein as The Last Olympian, be prepared for extreme disappointment. No such epic battle exists. How about a clever way to defeat Gaia? Nothing special there either, sure, it works and mirrors the myths but the way it was done felt so anticlimactic that you thought there has to be more. It also felt like Percy’s character was watered down heaps in order to bask the other characters in more glory but it felt superficial. Overall, Blood of Olympus is a disappointing final piece. Considering the noticeable drop in quality with book in Heroes of Olympus, this does not come as a surprise, it really feels the author’s inspiration tap ran dry and needs some time off in order to give us something in similar quality as the Percy Jackson series. However, fans of the world should have a go at the book, it’s not horrible by any means, at least there’s not another prophecy at the end.
Rating:
6/10