"The Mark of Athena" (2012) by Rick Riordan

Warning: If you have not read the previous books in this series, or the original series this one is following up on, then this review will contain spoilers for you. Also, why haven't you read these books yet?

Taking place right after the events of The Son of Neptune, The Mark of Athena continues the journey of the seven demigods, Percy, Annabeth, Leo, Jason, Piper, Hazel, and Frank, and their quest to stop Gaea from destroying the Earth as they know it. To accomplish this goal, the team must reach the original roots of the gods, Rome and Greece, before the giants lay waste to them. However, Annabeth has a journey ahead that only she can face alone. A journey that, if she succeeds, might be able to join both the Roman and Greek camps and end the war against the giants.

Simply put, if there was something or someone you did not like from the previous two books in this series, you will like them now. The pacing of The Mark of Athena is tight, leaving no room for boredom. The jokes are funnier and the action is fast-paced and detailed. The development of the characters and their chemistry have shown how far the characters, whether old or new, have come, giving the book more of a mature feel than its predecessors. Also, the balance of the subplots with the alternating third-person perspectives of four characters (Annabeth, Leo, Piper, and Percy) provides a much broader look on the plot and gives each of the 7+ characters time to shine.

With laugh-out-loud humor, edge-of-your-seat action, and a great amount of development for both plot and characters, The Mark of Athena is flawless and the best book yet in the Heroes of Olympus series! On to House of Hades!

5/5 Stars

You can buy your copy of the entire series from Amazon right here!

Comments

"Need for Speed" (2014) REVIEW

I know I'm not the only one who thought this movie was going to be a flop. I mean, not only is it a high-speed street racing movie, but it's also a videogame movie. Still, I gave it a shot, but mostly for the D-Box experience. Even with the earnings from winning illegal street races, Tobey Marshall (Aaron Paul) is still unable to keep his auto repair shop from his father open. For a chance to get $500,000, Tobey takes an offer from his street racing rival and successful car dealer Dino Brewster (Domonic Cooper) to finish building the Ford Mustang that Caroll Shelby was working on when he died. After building the car and selling it without Dino's consent, Dino challenges Tobey and Tobey's friend, Pete, to a street race for the money. Nearing the end of the race, desperate for revenge, Dino pushes Pete over a bridge and drives away, leaving Tobey to be blamed for vehicular manslaughter. Two years later, fresh out of prison, Tobey seeks out to knock Dino off his p...

What to Read After Insomiac's Spider-Man

So you've just defeated the Sinister Six, maybe done a side mission here and there, or perhaps 100% completed what most are considering the best Spider-Man game ever made (and they're right). What now? Where do you go from here to learn more about the wisecracking wall-crawler? Besides Tom Holland's performance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we've never really seen Spider-Man portrayed so solidly like we have here. This, my friends, is where the fun part comes in: Entering the vast world of Spider-Man presented in comics and novels. Allow me to be your guide, providing recommendations for any requests you may be wishing for. "I just want more..." Well, you're in luck because Marvel has 2 options for you! Spider-Man: Hostile Takeover is the official prequel novel to the game, taking place 6 months prior. It follows Spider-Man trying to find an imposter killing people, working with a newfound friend from the police force to take ...

Blue Beetle Rebirth Vol. 1: The More Things Change (Rebirth #1, #1-#6)

2/5 Jaime Reyes as the Blue Beetle has interested me and been on my reading list for a while. When I first discovered the character watching Batman: The Brave and the Bold , seeing Jaime as a relatable teen arguing with the sentient suit that gives him his powers, his New 52 line had already been cancelled. Then Geoff Johns wrote Rebirth and added a little scene with Jaime Reyes that I thought was both very interesting and promising. In short, Keith Giffen doesn't deliver in this volume until issue #6, where he kind of gives a small splice of what the series could be. Getting the obvious out of the way, the dialogue here is absolutely horrible. I tell myself it feels like a first draft, but then there are moments of repetition and sentences upon sentences of nothing going on. By then, it feels more like a very bloated outline with the characters speaking mostly hot air. The dialogue here isn't flat, it's completely empty. This, in turn, makes all the charac...

Kevin Lau

Search This Blog