BLOOD OF OLYMPUS - Initial Reactions/Review (SPOILERS)

Warning! LOTS OF SPOILERS FOR BLOOD OF OLYMPUS!

First off, I just want to quickly apologize for my unplanned 4-month hiatus. I'm really sorry about that. I don't even want to start making excuses, because that was just unforgivable of me. I really am very sorry.

I just finished The Blood of Olympus (a few days ago). I was really impressed with it overall, but at the same time I don't think that I liked it as much as I liked some of the other Heroes books. This whole going to be really crazy and out of order, so forgive me, but I'm REALLY EXCITED ABOUT THIS BOOK, BUT I ALSO FEEL REALLY CONFLICTED. I don't want to be too overly-peppy about this, and I also don't want to be really negative, so I'm just going to alternate between things I liked and things I didn't. 

• Good thing: JASON GRACE.
    For some odd reason, I loved him in this book a lot more than I did in the other books. Maybe it's because I did a full re-read of the other books before I started, and he was pretty flipping awesome throughout all of those too. People seem to forget about his awesomeness between book releases for some reason, and it's usually just him. Jason deserves some love, and not just from Piper. He's so great to everyone: the Greeks, the Romans, his friends, even his enemies like Kym. He's a really cool guy and I love him to pieces. Consider this a Jason Grace appreciation paragraph. I just want to hug him. New favorite character.

• Bad thing: PAGE COUNT.
    WHY SO LOW? This book is around 500 pages, and the other books were at least 550. And this was the last book! Final books are supposed to be longer than the rest, aren't they?

• Good thing: NICO AND REYNA.
   I've got to admit, I think I enjoyed the Nico and Reyna chapters in this book the most. Their perspectives were new and fresh, and I didn't realize before how tortured they were ("tortured" sounds a bit extreme, but you get the point, right?). Reyna's own inner battle about killing her father (but not really) just broke my heart. Nico was much more powerful than I originally thought he was, which was both interesting and scary at the same time. And the brother/sister bond that they formed with each other? That made my heart melt.
  
  
  
• Bad thing: THE LACK OF SALLY. AND BOB. AND DAMASEN.
    I seriously needed Sally Jackson. I understand that Percy is growing up and he doesn't need his mom around as much, but he had been gone for over half of a year. Yes, I know he left her a message and sent her letters, but I very badly wanted to see them reunited, and it didn't happen!
  
    A little bit of closure about how things worked out for Bob and Damasen would have been nice. Yes, Annabeth and Percy mentioned them, but did anyone think to maybe ask one of the super-powerful gods what might have happened to them? No?
  
  
  
• Good thing: MICHAEL VARUS.
    Okay, well maybe his presence wasn't great for Jason, but it's not him in particular that I'm happy about. It's the fact that when Rick Riordan mentions a thing, he USES THE THING LATER. He mentioned Michael Varus in previous books a few times, kind of as what I originally though was just a throwaway backstory for the Roman camp, but OH MY GOSH, he actually showed up. I adore that kind of consistency. I did not realize that he'd actually show up! :o
  
  
  
• Bad thing: BATTLES.
    What happened to the epic final battles that I could always count on from Rick Riordan?
    What happened to the fact that almost the entirety of The Last Olympian was the battle against Kronos?
    What happened to Annabeth's killer battle strategies?
    What happened?
      The fact that the giants were defeated in less than three pages is unacceptable. That's not allowed. THE BATTLE OF MANHATTAN TOOK UP LIKE HALF A BOOK, BUT THE BATTLE IN ATHENS TAKES UP LESS THAN A CHAPTER? eiwoh;taaiwetohgawtoyh The fact that Annabeth had pretty much nothing to do with defeating Gaea in that final battle is unacceptable. Yes, I realize that Leo had a plan, but gods dam it Leo Valdez, if you make a plan then flipping include Annabeth because her mom is the flipping goddess of flipping battle strategy! Leo in general in this book just made me angry, but I don't even want to start on that... Teamwork, Valdez! Teamwork!
  
  
  
  
  
• Good thing: WILL SOLACE AND NICO (and Nico's character development).
  Halfway through the book, I got really scared and I honestly thought that Riordan was going to either (1) let Nico be passive-aggressive and moody for the rest of his life, or (2) kill him off, because it seriously looked that way from the way he was using that Underworld magic. BUT NEITHER OF THOSE HAPPENED SO I'M REALLY HAPPY NOW BECAUSE WILL SOLACE MADE ANOTHER APPEARANCE AND IT WAS EPIC AND NICO MAY HAVE JUST FOUND SOMEBODY! AND EVEN IF HE HASN'T, HE HAS A FRIEND NOW! Nico developed so much in this book alone. He let Reyna hug him, he confessed his former crush to Percy, he decided to join the Greek camp, and he's actually making friends now. CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT MAKES ME EXCITED.
  
  BUT SOLANGELO.
  
  

  
• Bad thing: THE POVs.
    Jason, Piper, Leo, Reyna, and Nico.
    WHY?
    Let me clear this up: I love them all. As I previously stated, Jason is my current favorite character. Piper has grown on me since the beginning, Leo and Reyna have always been some of my favorites, and Nico's character development in this book makes me giddy. But these POVs weren't well-chosen in my opinion. The ideal POVs would have been...
  1. Jason, because he was the guy who basically started it all on the Greek side.
  2. Percy, because he was the guy who started everything on the Roman side.
  3. Frank or Hazel or Annabeth, because they were underrepresented in POVs in previous books (they each only had two, as opposed to Piper and Leo's three, without including BoO).
  4. Reyna or Nico, because getting the Athena Parthenos to Camp Half Blood was NOT the main storyline. I really love them and I loved their quest, but it really diverted my attention from the main plot. I found myself wanting a Nico or a Reyna chapter in the middle of say, a Leo chapter.
  
  Also, it would have been nice if each of them had a POV at the end, just to wrap things up and "say goodbye." That way, it could have included Annabeth having a talk with Athena (I mean, come on, isn't Athena going to praise and/or thank Annabeth for rescuing the statue? No?), maybe a bittersweet phonecall from Piper to her dad, a cute Frazel moment, etc. I was waiting for all of this... and then nothing.
  
  

  

  
  
•  Good thing: THE GODS ACTUALLY SHOWED UP.
    Do you have any idea how afraid I was that the gods would just decide to not show up to fight the giants? I could see Zeus just chillin' up in Olympus like, "Eh, these kids've got it. They'll do fine with just Nike trapped in their ship." But fortunately, such wasn't the case. I found it kind of funny that Zeus decided to start playing the blame game when Gaea was just about ready to destroy the world, but then Artemis, Athena, and Jason talked some sense into him and everything was cool. Phew.
  
  

  
• Bad thing: I FREAKED OUT BECAUSE PERCY ALMOST DIED.
  
   I ALSO THOUGHT THAT THALIA WAS DEAD FOR A COUPLE PARAGRAPHS. WHY DO YOU DO THESE THINGS TO ME??????
  
   RIORDAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  
  
• 
  Good thing: NO ONE DIED PERMANENTLY.
   And by "no one," I mean nobody in the main cast of "good guys." I was expecting to hear some familiar Camp Half-Blood names mentioned when it mentioned Nico helping with the burial procedures, but I guess not. *shrug* But... I didn't have to go through any pain. Octavian? He brought it on himself, although I did feel a tad bit sorry for him. Phoebe and Kinzie? Eh... Not really close to them...
  
  

  
  
  
• 
  
  Bad thing: NO ONE DIED PERMANENTLY (and other matters of suspense build-up followed by lack of closure).
   I have to admit, I'm a bit mad. This is the kind of suspenseful schist they were posting in the weeks leading up to the release........
  
  

  
  
  

  
    NOT COOL! You can't just do that! You can't just make us freak out like that and NOT HAVE ANYONE DIE!!!! The PR people seriously spent so much time and energy building up the "two people must be sacrificed to Gaea" thing, but then she was awakened by Percy the extreme dork's nosebleed. They even sent out boxes of HoO merchandise to a bunch of book reviewers on YouTube and had them make predictions, and then NOTHING HAPPENED. I'm sorry, but Leo came back to life, so that doesn't count. I don't appreciate that, I really don't. I thought that Frank's wood would burn up, or Nico would exert himself too much, or Hazel would be tragically forced to return to death, but nope. Just...
  

  
  

  
   Anyway, as for other matters:
    - Percy's fatal flaw was stressed a lot in the previous books, and there really wasn't anything that made him make a major decision that was affected by it.
    - Frank's stick played pretty much no part in the book (although I guess one could argue that that was taken care of at the end of HoH when Leo made the pouch for him).
   - At least Leo found Ogygia again. BUT, I wish we would have found out what time period that he actually was in when he woke up. I think it would have been cool (but really sad) if he found Camp Half-Blood again with Calypso and it ended up being fifty years in the future, then he had sort of a Captain America moment. Like he and Calypso would get off of Festus's back at Camp and he'd be like:
  
  

   
  wut

Now I will end with a list of good things.

1. Jason got glasses and is gonna be the pontifex maximus.
2. Percy and Annabeth are going to college together in New Rome.
3. Frank is actually legit gonna be co-praetor with Reyna. (!!!!!!)
4. Reyna, Piper, and Annabeth are like BFFs.
5. Coach Hedge named his son after Chuck Norris.
6. Coach Hedge named his son after Chuck Norris.
7. Coach Hedge named his son after Chuck Norris.

  Overall, I really liked the actual content of the book, I just felt that it needed more for it to be a proper conclusion. I liked the parts that we did get, but the problem for me was the timing, the length (or lack thereof), the perspective, and the arrangement. I think that I would have liked a stronger conclusion, but I think that Blood of Olympus definitely had its strengths as well as its weaknesses. 

Summer!

 Hello, fellow half-bloods!

 Before I say anything else, I'd like to acknowledge an amazing blog that I have been meaning to give a shout-out to for a very long time. You should all definitely visit The Multifandom Network, which, as you can probably tell from the title, is a blog that encompasses many different book/fandom-related topics, including Harry Potter, the Hunger Games, the Mortal Instruments, and, of course, Percy Jackson.

 Now, let's talk.

 I'm sure that you can tell by looking at the blog archive that I've been slacking a bit on my posts. The only excuse I can really give you is that I had schoolwork: tests, projects, research papers, homework in general... (I'm actually supposed to be studying for exams right now.)

 But the great thing is, soon I'll be free of that, and soon you'll get me back (if any of you actually stuck around)! My last day of school is this Friday, so after that I'm going to have a ton of free time that I can use to read and blog. Since I'm so excited about it, I've decided to share the premise of some posts that I'll be working on this June. (It helps if I have things written down and published so that I'm actually motivated to do them. So here goes.)

 Some topics I will be covering/posts I'm going to make:

• What You Don't Realize About... Frank
  Frank is seriously under-appreciated in the fandom, and I'm not okay with that. I feel like I have to address this, because it's a major problem. I may also make a "What You Don't Realize About..." post for Hazel, but I'm unsure whether or not I'm going to do that.
• My Feelings About PiperI've had mixed feelings about Piper for quite some time, and I think that it's about time that you hear about them.
• Fun FactsI'm actually looking forward to this a lot. I love learning little tidbits about things, and trying to find them is just as fun for me. (Did I mention that Jeopardy! is one of my favorite shows? Or is it obvious?) But yeah, a Percy Jackson fun fact post will almost definitely be in store.
• The Life of a Well-Loved and Heavily-Read SeriesMy love for Percy Jackson will probably never die, however paperbacks only last so long...
• The Staff of Serapis Discussion/ReviewI meant to post it last month, but it's been sitting in my drafts folder, unfinished, for weeks. At this point, I'll probably have to re-read it to be able to write the post. xD
• The Blood of Olympus: Who will die?I've been thinking about this post for a while, and I've actually started it already. There's been a lot of speculation about deaths in BoO, and I want to put my guesses and the reasoning behind them out there. I have a feeling that this post will be a big one.

 That's all I have in mind for now, and hopefully I'll come up with some more ideas for things to write over the summer. See you then, demigods. :)

Blog Housekeeping & Internet Rumors

 Hello, fine readers!

 As you may have noticed, I've been gone... for a while. It was kind of unintentional, but I got caught between schoolwork, musical rehearsals, and my own laziness. I'm not going to try to make any more excuses or empty promises, but I will just tell you that I can 97% guarantee that this blog will be more active in the summer months. Final exams and the end of school are approaching in the next few weeks, so I may not have time to post during that time frame, but I will have plenty of time to write blog entries afterwards. Basically, what I'm saying is that you'll be seeing more of me during the summer. :)

 The next topic that I want to address is that of internet rumors. They show up all over social media sites before the release of a book -- Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. Why are people so prone to believing them?

 Personally, I see many theories and lots of speculation, but not a lot of rumors. However, when I do come across one, I never believe it, and I'm urging you to do the same. Let's face it: when has a rumor proven to be true? How many rumors were there that Nico was going to die in the House of Hades, and did that happen? There are very rare circumstances when information or pages of books leak, but they're exactly that: rare. The only definite knowledge that we have about upcoming Riordan books is what the publishers release, or the small bits of information that Uncle Rick uses to troll us on Twitter. So please, don't get yourself worried about rumors, especially if they sound a little bit crazy.

 Oh, and another thing related to that: the things that I post on my blog about upcoming releases are NOT rumors, unless I specifically use the words "I heard a rumor that [fill in the blank with a rumor]". Everything on my blog is either me relaying something that was officially announced, or pure speculation and my own theories. Much of the time, it's a combination of both of those. But please, never take my thoughts and think of them as definite. I like to introduce possibilities, but not definite happenings (because I don't know them... I'm not psychic!). Please, don't take my posts as rumors, because they really aren't.

 In conclusion, I will be back with some hopefully interesting posts about the Blood of Olympus cover, my re-reading of The Lightning Thief, and maybe a couple of blog entries on my BoO theories. And in the mean time, DON'T BELIEVE INTERNET RUMORS! Have a great day, half-bloods! :)

Blood of Olympus Cover!

Warning! May contain House of Hades spoilers!

 Hello, lovely blog readers, if any of you are still around. Yesterday brought excitement, because the Blood of Olympus cover was released! Here it is:

 

 

John Rocco has once again provided this series with some outstanding artwork. In the cover, we can see Jason flying toward some giants (I'm going to assume they're giants, because they look like them...), Hazel riding Arion into battle, and Frank shooting toward the giants with his bow. There is a mysterious crane-tower-thingymajig in the background, and it definitely looks like they're at some kind of ancient Greek site (perhaps the Parthenon?).

 Overall, it looks like a very beautiful cover that I'll be able to glean some hints and speculation out of in a more complete analysis (that I'll most likely write this weekend). Also, don't forget: The Staff of Serapis will be available as an e-single on May 20th, and it will include a SNEAK PEAK OF THE BLOOD OF OLYMPUS! :)

 Have a great day, demigods!

Character Analysis: Clarisse!

Warning! Contains major spoilers for books up to Son of Neptune, and (very) minor spoilers for House of Hades!

 Clarisse La Rue, daughter of Ares, is a pretty amazing demigod. When she is introduced in The Lightning Thief, she is nothing but a bully toward Percy. However, throughout the course of the books, she slowly softens up and becomes his ally and sort-of friend, although they still tend to clash. Clarisse is a character who seems rough around the edges, but has many layers which we get to see throughout the course of the book.

The Lightning Thief

In this book, the only layer of Clarisse that we really get to see is her exterior: a malicious daughter of Ares, the war god. She likes to pick on the other campers, and Percy seems to be one of her main targets. When she tries to put Percy's head in the toilet as his "initiation", Clarisse and her cabinmates get doused with a ginormous wave of toilet water. Percy also manages to break Clarisse's spear during Capture the Flag, which infuriates her. These two events show a key point of her personality: how she reacts to losing a fight. If you ever beat Clarisse at anything, she will storm off and conceal her humiliation with angry threats.

The Sea of Monsters

The Sea of Monsters displays a different side of Clarisse. The first direct glimpse of her relationship with her father, Ares, takes place on the C.S.S. Birmingham during her Quest for the Golden Fleece. Clarisse is intimidated by her dad. She strives to live up to her father's expectations, and Ares doesn't believe she is doing well enough. This scene is important, because it reveals the motivation for many of Clarisse's actions. Why was Clarisse always so set on winning and being victorious? That's why. Not just for personal glory, but also to live up to the expectations of dear old dad.

The Titan's Curse

Clarisse is absent from Titan's Curse because she is on a top-secret scouting mission, which we later discover is her journey into the Labyrinth.

The Battle of the Labyrinth

Can I just say how much I love the side of Clarisse that we got to see in this book? 

She and Annabeth are actually getting along really well. She comforts Juniper at Grover's trial at the beginning of the book. Then, we find out that Clarisse found Chris Rodriguez after he had gotten out of the Labyrinth, and he had gone crazy. Clarisse tries to nurse him back to health. She calls the Labyrinth evil, and tells Percy to kill Daedalus when he finds him because anyone who could create something so terrible must be evil. It's apparent that Clarisse has strong feelings about both Chris's and her experiences in the Labyrinth, and those feelings influence her vulnerable side to show.

(Note: Thankfully, at the end, Chris is cured by Mr. D.)

The Last Olympian

The Last Olympian shows several layers of Clarisse's personality. The spat between the Ares and Apollo cabin and her reluctance to compromise show that she is very stubborn and proud. We also see her comfort and stand up for Silena after Charles Beckendorf's death, which reveals her caring and protective side (which we also saw with her relationship with Chris in BotL). Later in the novel, she avenges Silena's death by violently slaying the drakon that killed her (while wearing NO ARMOR AT ALL). So in other words... don't mess with Clarisse or her friends because she will tear you apart.

The Heroes of Olympus

 After Percy Jackson & the Olympians, we don't really see Clarisse. She makes brief appearances in The Lost Hero and The House of Hades, but not anything beyond that and a few mentions of her in passing.

How will she get along with Frank, her Roman brother?

I've thought about this a lot, actually. Hazel and Nico are on a friendly basis (or at least as friendly that Nico can get with anyone), and Jason and Thalia grew up together for a year or two, then reunited in The Lost Hero. But what about Frank and Clarisse? They are two very different characters. I honestly can't see them clashing with each other; it just doesn't work in my mind. I can see them respecting each other and working really well together in battle.

What role will she play in The Blood of Olympus?

Clarisse almost definitely won't be a main character. I think her time as a main character has passed. However, I'm fairly confident that she'll make at least a brief appearance. In The House of Hades, she was leading demigods in preparation for the Roman attack, so she should be there. I really hope to see her interact somehow with Frank, Percy, and Annabeth. Fingers crossed!

Clarisse by Irencia on deviantART

That's all for now. Have a good week, demigods! :)