Review: Mark of Athena by: Rick Riordan

Mark of Athena by: Rick Riordan

Publisher: Hyperion Books for children

608 pages

Genre: Fantasy/Mythology/Young Adult

Summary: Percy has his memory back and is finally reunited with Annabeth. These two demigods along with five others, Jason Grace, Hazel Levesqu, Frank Zhang, Piper McLean, and Leo Valdezgo, must go on a quest to save Hazel’s brother Nico di Angelo from the clutches of the Giants. Annabeth must also branch away on her own quest to learn more about the Mark of Athena and the legendary treasure to which it leads. Greek and Roman demigods must fight together if they have any hope of stopping Gaia.

Review: Riordan brings us another exciting adventure, even if it can somewhat become repetitive, in a world where demigods exist and monsters must be fought.

I am a huge Percy Jackson fan and I couldn't wait for this next installment in the series to be published. I will say with absolute certainty that fans of this series will not be let down. Once again Riordan managed to pull me so far into the book that I sometimes thought I was also a demigod in a fight against time.

 My favorite part of the book is getting the story from Percy’s point of view.  Although it can be refreshing to get different characters perspectives on what is going on I will always prefer Percy Jackson’s point of view and his quirky personality. I do however believe that it was necessary to show view points from some of the other characters for the reader to really be able to follow what was going on.  Occasionally the characters would split up and go on different smaller missions, switching the point of view gives the reader more insight into what the other characters are doing and thinking instead of just Percy all the time. On the other hand, it sometimes got overly frustrating with it always switching around.

I want to give props to Riordan for really having the characters grow in his books, especially Percy and Annabeth who readers have followed since they were 11 and are now in their late teen years.  In this book in particular Riordan showed us how much these characters are growing, which is essential not only because of their age but because of the many different obstacles, dramas, death, and fighting that accompany their quests, and of course  how the whole have to worry about saving the world thing may change someone. Don’t get me wrong they can still be a little whiny, but I want to remind you that these are books are written for young adults. The amount of relationship talk in this book can get a little overwhelming, but it isn't enough to drive you away from reading it.

It may seem repetitive at times when this book, the third one in the Heroes of Olympus series, still continues to have the same quest plot which includes the demigods facing many small challenges, usually outsmarting smaller Gods, and continue on to their bigger quest that gets resolved only to the extent that the main big baddie of the series doesn’t get defeated, but I enjoy these plot lines and what would a quest be without them? Plus, Riordan throws us enough tiny curve balls along the way that you probably won’t even notice any repetitiveness.

With a huge cliff-hanger at the end of this one I guarantee you will be like me, counting down till the next book comes out. I say read this book as soon as humanly possible. If you haven’t read any books in this series yet then I suggest you start cracking.

Rating: 5/5