The Son of Neptune

By Rick Riordan

513 Pages

Published by Hyperion Book CH

★★★★★

By Em 

 

First, let me say congratulations to everyone for surviving the 2012 apocalypse! Now let's just wait a couple more years, because by then someone will have found another supposed "end of the world"! I also hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas. But remember; Mr. C is still watching, so everyone be good, because no one want to find coal in their stockings next Christmas.

Rick Riordan is what I consider one of the all time greats for young adult writing. And I think this, because his books are written towards teenagers, but anyone can find the great story and humor in them. Take my family. My younger brother loves Rick's writings, I love his writing, and my mom loves his stuff too! These books hit a Harry Potter string, in where they were written for kids, but will forever be loved by everyone! That is a sign of a great, great author.

Percy has awaken from a long, deep sleep, and has no memory of about anything besides his name. After being trained by Lupa, he somehow manages to make his way to a camp for half-bloods in California. But for some reason, none of it brings back any memories, or does he find the one thing he does remember; Annabeth. Hazel was not meant to still be alive. In her first life, she made mistakes that are returning to haunt her. She wishes she could just grab the horse in her dreams and ride away from everything. But now she must face those mistakes, and she's no the only one with her life on the line. Frank has always been clumsy. He keeps being told he descends from great heroes, but whenever he looks at himself, he sees no relation to them whatsoever. Well, his own father won't even claim him, so maybe he's even worse than he thought. But he trusts his good friend Hazel, and hopes that he can eventually confront her with his secret that has haunted him since he came to the camp. Together these three will face all sorts of fearsome creatures and terrible monsters, all destined to be a part of the Prophecy of Seven.

I was happy to get to see Percy again in this book, but with a fresh start. We all remember the great heroic Percy from The Lightning Thief and the books that followed. But now, he doesn't remember that life, so he is completely rediscovering the world he lives in.Though, we see the return of certain beloved factors of him, like Riptide and his impeccable sarcasm that even I am jealous of sometimes. It's so nice to see him again.

I think that Rick Riordan has found a way to breathe new life into this wondrous idea he has made a series. By creating another camp, this one run by the children of Roman gods just brings a whole new world into perspective. They have different customs, different ways of running the camp, and even better yet, a whole new demigod sport that I love. (Though Capture the Flag still holds a special place in my heart.) And while Camp Jupiter may not be as totally awesome as Camp Half-Blood (and honestly, what could be?), it is still pretty darn interesting. It's not only a camp, it's also attached to a town where demigods can "retire" to when they are old enough. That itself makes the camp even more unique. Though, I was a little sad that these Roman demigods named their camp after Jupiter. (Or maybe Jupiter named it after himself...?)

I wasn't exactly as pleased with the new characters as I was with the first book. I feel that the two characters were a little.. what's the word... melodramatic? They have secrets that they so desperately want to share, but they refuse to share them, and then they seem to make this massive deal about sharing their secrets with one another. The characters in the first book had secrets, and yes, they wanted to share them but didn't. But their secrets weren't these weird confessionals. I don't know if that makes any sense at all, but these characters, beyond being melodramatic, did not interest me as much as the other three new characters from the first book. They seemed to have more interesting stories to them. Though, I did like Ella very much. I thought she was a fun new character.

I liked the introduction to some other Roman/Greek mythological things. Like we get to meet a certain rainbow goddess and some new butt-kicking female warriors. We get some more evil giants and these little evil grain spirits that I love! The characters meet all sorts of new villains and allies on their journey.

I think this new series Rick is writing is as good as the first one. (And the books are longer! Score!) I'm literally tearing my hair out as I slowly climb my way up to holding list at the library. I'm up to 11!! I think this series has lots of promise and I can't wait to see where it goes!

(Now, Mel and I owe you a big old apology. We said we would post more over the break, but I don't think we could have lied more. I started this review back on December 21st, the last day of school before break, and now look at the date. But hey, it was Christmas. That in itself is a very stressful time! We're going to do our best to post something, but midterms are two weeks away and about all free time is going to be dedicated to studying for those, so we'll do our best to keep you posted!)