Heroes of Olympus – The Mark of Athena
Author: Rick Riordan
Publisher: Puffin Books
Genres: Young Adult, Fiction, Adventure, Friendship, Children
Pages: 511
Format: Paperback
Buy: Book Depository | Amazon
Can Percy Jackson and the Half-blood Heroes succeed on their quest to find The Doors of Death or will the Greek Gods of chaos win their battle to stop them? Percy and his fellow demi-gods face the most important quest of all – the Prophecy of Seva.
SO FAR, THIS IS MY FAVORITE BOOK (of the two series, Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus)!
The Greek and Roman demigods join together to try to save the world from Gaia’s awakening. I love having the whole group of 7 together. They are an amazing group representing each a different godly family (Poseidon, Athena, Mars, Pluto, Aphrodite, Jupiter and Hephaestus) + Nico in this book that represents Hades (Pluto).
They are all so different, and you can really see that in the beginning of the book but I feel that in the end they really come together as team despite what camp they represent.
There is more romance in this book between Percy and Annabeth but just a cute feeling nothing too much. Piper and Jason don’t have much moments together but they are still adorable! Than there is Hazel and Frank that are super cute but had a lot of things in the middle, like Leo 😛 I love Leo, he is awesome, but not with Hazel…
The gods don’t appear much for now, just tiny bits, not enough.
It developed slowly with tiny things for them to get through and only in the last pages we had the big BOOM again, but that was okay. Yet this was the first time it ended like this… I won’t say more but… WHAT?
I loved the book, it was amazing and I loved to read about them all, I really enjoy this group! And Nico!! Excited for the next one 😀 😀
!WARNING: SPOILERS ahead!!
THE CENTRAL IDEA
This book starts with the arrival of The Greek group to Camp Jupiter in the Argo II.
“Until she met the exploding statue, Annabeth thought she was prepared for anything.” She’d paced the deck of their flying warship, the Argo II, checking and double-checking the ballistae to make sure they were locked down. She’d confirmed that the white “We came in peace” flag was flying from the mast.
Annabeth sees Percy, for the first time in some months because of Juno. (That was freaking awesome!)
Annabeth put her knee on Percy’s chest. She pushed her forearm against his throat. She didn’t care what the Romans thought. A white-hot lump of anger expanded in her chest—a tumor of worry and bitterness that she’d been carrying around since last autumn. “If you ever leave me again,” she said, her eyes stinging, “I swear to all the gods—” Percy had the nerve to laugh. Suddenly the lump of heated emotions melted inside Annabeth. “Consider me warned,” Percy said.”
After that it didn’t take much time for things to go wrong … (Don’t they always? :P) After some time in camp Jupiter the group had to run away! So here starts the quest to rescue the Athena Parthenos and Nico!
In this quest they had to do many turns to get things to fix the ship, trying to avoid the Romans and to ask for help from some gods and minor gods. The arriving to Rome was a lot of fun to read about because it’s filled with difficulties set by Gaia.
THE MAIN CHARACTERS
Percy
“Like water leaking through a dam,” said Piper.
“Yeah,” smiled Percy. “We’ve got a dam hole.”
“What?” Piper asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “Inside joke.”
That part made me smile, and think about Zoe and Thalia and all the hunters. Anyway, Percy in this book seemed much more romantic and worried about Annabeth (they are so cute!). As long as they were together everything was okay; and that was so sweet! Also I really think he and Jason make a cool team.
Annabeth
“And this is Annabeth”, Jason said “Uh, normally she doesn’t judo-flip people”
Annabeth path in this book was pretty cool, she had to combat her worse fears; she kinda reminded me of Hermione, in this book you really see Annabeth how she is, fighting mainly with the brains (my favorite part is with the Lares)… Also she had some cute moments with Percy that I really enjoyed to see!
Hazel
“Once the others were below, Hazel and Leo faced each other awkwardly. They were alone except for Coach Hedge, who was back on the quarterdeck singing the Pokémon theme song. The coach had changed the words to: Gotta Kill ’Em All, and Leo really didn’t want to know why.”
It was nice to see how Hazel and Leo stories mix. But it also felt awkward… Also it’s always super funny when someone talks about nowaday things and she looks confused 😛 AHH She is super cute, and I really love her powers.
Frank
Two kids appeared at Percy’s side, the same ones Annabeth had seen him chumming around with earlier. The burly Asian guy with buss cut was about fifteen. He was cute in a sort of oversized-cuddly-panda-bear way.
Frank in the beginning of this book was a bit difficult because of the triangle going on… But I think that in the end they started getting along all together as actual friends, which is great! And I really like to see him with Hazel, more than Leo. Also, I bet he is a cute koi! 😛
Leo
“I try not to think. It interferes with being nuts”
Leo is the funny type always, and thats what it makes him so unique, even if things are bad, he tries to see the good side, or at least cheer up the spirit. He is super cute and almost all his ideas are the craziest things ever… But they are always amazing!
Piper
Piper had a new entry in her top-ten list of Times Piper Felt Useless.
Piper is still to harsh on herself, she is not a super strong type of warrior, but thats the point! Every one of them are different and complement each other. She helped a lot in her own way, even if she didn’t see it. I loved the Hercules part with Piper. Also I love to see her with Jason but I feel that they didn’t had much development.
Jason
“Incredible,” Jason said. “These are really good brownies.”
“That’s your only comment?” Piper demanded.
He looked surprised. “What? I heard the story. Fish-centaurs. Merpeople. Letter of intro to the Tiber River god. Got it. But these brownies—”
“I know,” Frank said, his mouth full. “Try them with Esther’s peach preserves.”
“That,” Hazel said, “is incredibly disgusting.”
Jason is nice and super strong, but he doesn’t show much emotions, except that I always felt miserable during the quest, since he thought he was not doing enough to protect his friends. Also, Jason and Percy have been measuring forces every time they can. But in the end they conjoin them and its amazing!
PLOT DEVELOPMENT
This book was pretty good and with a lot of action, but the main quest started pretty late (again)… But we had time to see a lot of the characters’ history. Also it has a total different end from the others which I liked and was totally not expecting!
SETTING
I loved the trip to Rome and all the difficulties, I loved the underwater camp and the entrance to the Mare Nostrum! Like always they seemed super realistic.
THINGS I LIKED
- I loved to see the all group in action.
- I think this book had even more difficulties to get through than the others.
- I liked how Hercules and Narcissus where explained.
- I loved how the powers of the seven of them are always needed somehow.
THE THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE
✘ The quest developed super late, but I already got used to since you see so much in the way to the quest, so maybe is not totally a “didn’t like” part.
✘ I know Olympus is closed but still, I miss to see a bit more of the gods.
FINAL WORDS
I loved this book more than any of them at this very moment, and I really wanna read the next one after that cliff-hanger!!
If you have read the book, what’s your favorite part?
Mine is for sure when Annabeth faces the Lares! It was so cool! HAHAH
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