The Last Olympian

I really loved all the Percy Jackson series. It was wonderful to see how all the parts connected in the end, no lose ends. I love that these books don\’t leave anything open to interpretation and explain the story very well. I really enjoyed all the adventure, it was great! The characters are also very easy to empathize with, I already miss Percy and Annabeth. The one thing that left me a bit disappointed about this book in particular is that with it being the last one in the series revolving around the first great prophecy, and Percy finally having to play his very important part, I expected more conflict on him. Percy is under a lot of pressure and tension, I think it would have been more realistic, and more pleasing therefore, to see more conflict go on within him, to see him struggle a bit more to make the right decisions and therefore see some growth in his own personality, to go deeper and give more meaning to the \”yealding\” Hestia talks about. In short: I think we didn\’t see Percy really \”yealding\”. It seems that everything was a bit too easy for him when it came to making decisions. That felt too unreal. I feel that the whole topic of yielding, maturing, being generous and really having to struggle to get there, which is what most have to go through, wasn\’t represented in a realistic manner. It was too simplistic. On a final note, as much as I have found this new take on mythological stories fun and entertaining, I\’m not sure I\’ll read the other books in The Heroes of Olympus and The Trials of Apollo series. It gets boring if you only read about the same thing. It would be great if the author wrote about other things besides mythology, and offered us new adventures to read without having anything to do with mythology.

I was afraid that after Harry Potter my son was never going to read another book again because nothing seemed appealing or exciting enough to him. The Percy Jackson series changed that and he is now moving on to the second Rick Riordan series. He says the next series is not as good as the Percy Jackson series, but in general, he likes it too. This is the fifth book in the Percy Jackson series and I think it is really only appropriate if you\’ve read the other four. It is certainly a series and you can make sense of it as a stand-alone book, but it is clearly intended to be part of a series. My son said it was a \”very good\” last book to the series and he was really sad when it is was done. I\’m not sure he would have been talked into reading the first Percy Jackson book himself, but his teacher at school read it to them, and then he was hooked. We are now re-reading the Percy Jackson series together and then our plans are to read The Heroes of Olympus series together as well, so I think it says a lot about the Percy Jackson books that he is willing to read them two times in a pretty short time frame. Overall I am pleased because he is reading and the material is appropriate for his age and he is pleased because he found some books he really likes.

MY RATING SYSTEM 5 stars–WOW 4 stars–would read again 3 stars–was good, won\’t read again 2 stars–read it, but didn\’t enjoy it 1 star–didn\’t finish, it was so awful Do I need to read books before this one: yes Cliffhanger: no SUMMARY Percy and Rachel have been spending a lot of time together over the summer. She invites him to vacation with her family in the Caribbean because she needs to talk to him about something. But Beckendorf shows up, It\’s time. Rachel kisses him for luck. Percy and Beckendorf fly to the Princess Andromeda on a mission to blow it up before it reaches New York Harbor tomorrow. Beckendorf looks at a picture of his girlfriend, Silena, daughter of Aphrodite. They sneak to the engine room and start setting explosives of Greek fire. They hear people coming. Percy will distract them so Beckendorf can keep working. He fights monsters and demigods. Luke/Kronos meets him, and within seconds Percy is surrounded. They\’d known he was coming for weeks; Luke shows him the bracelet with the Titan\’s symbol as a charm. They duel. It\’s apparent Kronos hasn\’t fully taken over Luke. Nakamura brings Beckendorf out; he still wears the watch (detonator). There\’s no delay on it. Beckendorf brings his hand to the watch and Percy dives off the ship. EVALUATION For me, this book was like Endgame: you know the good guys are gonna win; it\’s a matter of how and with what losses. It didn\’t go like I thought it would. We meet even more gods and heroes and monsters. It is much more satisfying than I\’d hoped. RECOMMENDATION Those who\’ve read the first 4 books FAVORITE QUOTES My head felt like it had been microwaved in aluminum foil. You want a bonbon? My dad sent them. He thoughthe thought they might cheer me up. Are they any good? She shook her head. They taste like cardboard. I didnt have anything against cardboard, so I tried one. The other two were driven by harpies, who are basically demonic human/chicken hybrids with bad attitudes. We used the harpies mostly for cleaning the camp, but they did pretty well in midtown traffic too. He looks like a magician. I hate magicians. They usually have rabbits. I stared at him. Youre scared of bunnies? Blah-hah-hah! Theyre big bullies. Always stealing celery from defenseless satyrs! Hope does not leave without being given permission. Youre just as much of an outcast as I am! Stop being angry about it and do something helpful for once. Thats the only way theyll respect you! Hope survives best at the hearth. POSSIBLE TRIGGERS (SPOILERS) Sex: kisses Language: 0 F words, 8 Lord\’s name in vain, 0 S words Violence: war, human deaths, no gore

What an amazing way to end this series! This book was absolutely jam packed full of action! I figured we\’d get more of a build up but it went straight into the battle pretty early on and it didn\’t stop from there. One thing I find odd about me liking this book so much is that there is a lot of flashback scenes (Percys dreams & the Gods showing him stuff) and it didn\’t bother me one bit. I normally really, really hate flashbacks but it is a testament to Riordan\’s writing that I really loved this book anyway. Every scene felt it had a purpose. I was so glad that so many great characters played a part in the final battle. Clarisse has never truly been a likeable character but in this book she was downright HBIC. There were also so many twists. A lot of them I really did not see coming. Even though we had a lot of clues they were cryptic and open to a lot of interpretation. I did manage to guess a few but in the end it didn\’t really matter because the ending was so well tied together that it felt like no matter how hard you tried, you could of never thought of it yourself so perfectly. If I was less fangirly about this entire series I could have two complaints about this book. It felt like it tried too hard to be funny at the start (but it soon evened out). There where so many random one liners, that fair enough to Rick Riordan made me laugh out loud, but they weren\’t really needed. Secondly, everyone turned out to be redeemed or forgiven in some way and not everyone deserved that. In a way it made sense, after all these are just kids. But some of them where just downright evil and others complete brats that didn\’t deserve to be redeemed or forgiven at all. The ending was sweet and left a lot open so Riordan could write a lot more! And can we please appreciate how awesome Nico is. I had to stop myself at certain points because no way should a person my age be thinking that Riordan\’s description of Nico was attractive! My two favourite quotes: \”If you\’re heading downtown from Central Park, my advice is to take the subway. Flying pigs are faster, but way more dangerous.\” & \”I kept climbing – past another telkhine who was so startled he dropped his Li\’l Demons lunchbox. I left him alive – partly because his lunchbox was cool, partly so he could raise the alarm and hopefully get his friends to follow me rather than head towards the engine \”

This is the last book in the series of five that make up the Percy Jackson series. There is a follow on series called The Heroes of Olympus, which features some of the characters from this series, but this is the culmination of this particular five book plot arc. I have been reading these books to my children all summer, and have been as excited as them to finally find out what happens, which is good, because they demand at least three chapters a night, and sometimes more if my voice can stand it. This is not a book you can read as a standalone novel, and if you are new to Rick Riordan\’s writing I suggest you start with the first book, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. Riordan\’s books are always action packed, but I think this one is even more exciting to read as it launches us straight into the action and never stops delivering thrill after thrill. My children were utterly gripped. I don\’t want to give anything away here, so will not go into the ins and outs of the plot, but will say that we all thought the ending was excellent and everything was resolved satisfactorily. An amazing series.

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