The Blood of Olympus

by Rick Riordan
published: Disney-Hyperion Books, 2014
pages: 516

Gaea will rise unless the Greek and Roman demigods work together to stop her and the Giants.  As Nico and Reyna take the Athena Parthenos back to Camp Half-blood, Jason, Percy and the rest of the crew make their way toward Athens on the Argo II.  Both groups must complete their mission if they wish to stop Gaea from destroying the world.  Will they be able to unite the camps of demigods or will the obstacles prove too great for these heroes of Olympus.

As with all stories, this one had to come to an end.  Honestly, I wasn't getting my hopes up because lots of endings have let me down recently.  But, I needed to know what happened to my favorite demigods and if all hell broke loose.  This also happened to be the first Olympus book I had to wait for and it was an extremely long wait!  After having the entire series back to back, I knew it would be irritating, but I did not expect to like this series as much as I did.

There were plenty of voices to finish telling this story, which can be difficult if each voice isn't distinct enough to tell the difference between them.  In this book, each character's voice was unique and defined.  I loved seeing the story play out through everyone's eyes because each demigod saw things slightly different.  It allowed for characters to have moments with each other without having the entire crew present, which was crucial since there are nine or so main characters.  Even though each character didn't get even page time, I'm okay with that.  This is possibly my favorite part of these books, the storytelling from all the different points of view.

My biggest annoyance with this story is the climax seemed to be over too soon, like the entire series was building up to this potential fight with Gaea and then it was done.  I won't say much more because of spoilers, but I wished there had been more here.

Rick Riordan seems to be the master of greek and roman god storytelling.  I fell in love with the characters from the first Percy Jackson book and read steadily until the very end.  These characters will always have a spot in my heart. Well done Mr. Riordan, well done.

Stars: 4/5

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