#<- this is just my tag for anything camp halfblood chronicles related tho

[yyyyanyan]

Book Club: The Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan

part 2 of my Camp Halfblood Chronicles binge!

It had suchhh a strong start with The Lost Hero. I love all three of them to bits (especially Jason but also ALL of them are my babies I'm holding them in my palms). The Roman/Greek split blew my mind when I first read this book years ago and honestly I'm still kind of processing it LOL. I'm obsessed with how Piper works on her charmspeak and getting comfortable in her own skin and Leo and his relationship with his fire powers??? god amazing!! And Jason I always felt like was such a strong stern type and I'm just attached to him. I think specifically he came off super perfect at first (especially with how Piper had her crush on him) and it was so pleasant to see him failing.

I like The Son of Neptune slightly less but not for any specific reason I can pinpoint--I think I just really vibed with the Jason-Piper-Leo trio. I did think it was absolutely sick that we got to see Percy is utterly insanely powerful and Hazel's backstory had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. I also have a soft spot for Frank since he's Chinese-Canadian (one nitpick: what is his Chinese name Fai supposed to be?).

Unfortunately, I really lost my drive by the third and fourth books ToT I think there was just too many POVs and every time I was getting in the swing of things it was time for a new character in a new situation. And I'm sorry but Tartarus was such a drag for me!! I feel like I didn't get enough of a sense of just how miserable and horrible it was and honestly I just felt sad for Bob/Iaepetus all the time. The one positive of the variety of perspectives was, again, seeing Percy being a madlad from outsider POV <3

Anyways once once I finished Book 4 and went to the last book (Blood of Olympus) it went way faster--I was so excited about reading from Reyna's and Nico's perspectives! Reyna and Nico are sooo good together they're my #1 brotp (maybe). Honestly though once I got to this point I was kind of like, "seven halfbloods" answering the call feels so arbitrary to me? Both Reyna and Nico play such critical roles--especially Nico--that I feel kind of robbed that they're not officially listed as people in the prophecy. This is also the place where I say: ngl I think Annabeth being one of the seven was totally lame LOL (I like Annabeth though!) I feel like she had more of a supporting role and her Athena prophecy could have been a quest that was helping this big one (also 'cause it wasn't listed in this one). However this is definitely also my Nico bias talking because Nico is definitely one of my top blorbos in PJO

Anyways it's been like maybe two or three weeks since I finished the whole series and I have to say the ending was really underwhelming to me. I'm literally not even sure I could tell you what happened in Blood of Olympus in detail. I was so sure it was going to be even more epic and even grander and it kind of totally missed the mark? I remember being so moved and feeling the battles in The Last Olympian so vividly and this one felt so weak. I also thought that Gaea would be like... more prominent I guess? I literally think Tartarus ended up being more scary and he featured so much less. The final defeat was so underwhelming lmao :'D

Kind of related to the above is: I also felt more and more as the series went on that Leo really was a seventh wheel, in the sense that he just didn't seem as close to everyone else. I wish his relationship with Frank had been less prickly especially after the main point of their antagonism was resolved (like why did Leo ALWAYS have to make Frank the butt of the joke?), and I also wish the weird almost-Hazel/Leo thing just didn't happen? I feel like at that point she already liked Frank and neither she nor he really got invested in the sort-of-romance and I feel like if they had just settled into just being friends after the whole revelation thing then it would have made sense. It was exciting that Leo was the key to winning the battle, but I felt like it lacked emotional impact because he felt so separate from them all. Calypso and Leo ARE the cutest though and I was/am rooting so hard for them

The last thing is, I feel like there were a lot of like... plot points that didn't go anywhere? I can't tell if they were put in so they would get resolved in the third series but I'm kind of disappointed that they weren't dealt with in this series. So the ones that I picked up/am really interested in are:

Percy getting more violent/merciless and being scared of it

Jason's sort of... struggle between Roman and Greek? Specifically I feel like in the first book he was so Roman and then suddenly it became that he had a conflict(??) and felt more Greek. I guess with this one it's less that it was unresolved but more it came out of nowhere for me and I kind of wish it had been laid out more from the beginning. I will continue my salt in my ramblings of the sequel series btw

Hazel coming back from the dead?? Did Nico just see her and go "I'm taking her" and that was it lol or was there something else...?