Review: The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan (Spoiler Free)

The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan

Series: The Trials of Apollo #1

Publisher: Penguin Random House

Published May 3rd, 2016

Genres: YA, Fantasy, Mythology

Pages: 359

Format: Paperback

Buy: Book Depository | Amazon

How do you punish an immortal? By making him human. After angering his father Zeus, the god Apollo is cast down from Olympus. Weak and disoriented, he lands in New York City as a regular teenage boy. Now, without his godly powers, the four-thousand-year-old deity must learn to survive in the modern world until he can somehow find a way to regain Zeus’s favor. But Apollo has many enemies—gods, monsters, and mortals who would love to see the former Olympian permanently destroyed. Apollo needs help, and he can think of only one place to go… an enclave of modern demigods known as Camp Half-Blood.

Although Rick Riordan is one of my favorite authors, I have to say that I was a bit afraid of not liking this book… Normally I don’t really like when authors start getting the series way too big because they normally get worse. But I guess this is an exception!

In this book, the god Apollo is turned into a mere mortal with acne. And he’s an awesome character! He is arrogant, selfish and extremely funny. Although he is mortal now, he still thinks like a god a lot of the times, but he starts to gradually change his attitude through the book. But not on everything! Which makes me really happy, because I prefer an arrogant, cute Apollo to a weeny one. And the best part about him is that he doesn’t pretend to be someone else. and since he was a god, obviously he gained a lot of enemies over the years. And we are about to see some!

From the beginning, he is bound to Meg, a 12-year-old Demigod. I really enjoyed her character too. She is cute, brave and stubborn. And she has an extremely big heart. Plus she has a peach as a sidekick. How cool is that?!

And of course, Percy Jackson! He doesn’t appear that much, but I loved when he does. Ah… I missed him! Hopefully, he will appear more in the next books! But at least we had a lot more of Nico de Angelo! AND HE IS EVEN CUTER!!!

The world is the same, the main events are at Camp Half-Blood. I absolutely love this place! I don’t think you need to have read the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series or The Heroes of Olympus series, but it does contain some spoilers from those.

Overall, this book was really good, it was a bit slow to start with but I did love the writing and all the humour in it! It was an extremely funny ride and I can’t wait to read the next book that is almost coming out!

*Plus in the end of the book, there’s a “Guide to Apollo-speak that is really interesting.

 

Best Quotes:

“Nothing is more tragic than loving someone to the depths of your soul and knowing they cannot and will not ever love you back.”

“Nico,” I said at last, “shouldn’t you be sitting at the Hades table?”
He shrugged. “Technically, yes. But if I sit alone at my table, strange things happen. Cracks open in the floor. Zombies crawl out and start roaming around. It’s a mood disorder. I can’t control it. That’s what I told Chiron. “
“And is it true?” I asked.
Nico smiled thinly. “I have a note from my doctor.”
Will raised his hand. “I’m his doctor.” –  I LOVE NICO AND WILL TOGETHER SO MUCH!

“Things can turn out differently, Apollo. That’s the nice thing about being human. We only have one life, but we can choose what kind of story it’s going to be.”

“Not all monsters were three-ton reptiles with poisonous breath. Many wore human faces.”

Have you started this series already? What was your favorite moment?

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