Tag Archives: Roman mythology

Book Review: The Heroes of Olympus The Mark of Athena

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The Heroes of Olympus: The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan is the third book within the Heroes of Olympus series. Within this book, the seven demi-gods mentioned in the prophecy of the seven finally meet up and begin their quest. Of those seven demi-gods, this book shows the P.OV. of the four of them who are Greek demi-gods, namely Percy Jackson son of Poseidon, Annabeth Chase daughter of Athena, Piper McLean daughter of Aphrodite, and Leo Valdez son of Hephestus.

Moving more into the plot now, this book places a lot of emphasis on the struggles and furthermore, the doubts of the protagonists. With Percy we see him being to think more about his role on the team, his fatal flaw of loyalty, and how that affects him. Percy is grappling with the fact that he is insanely loyal and protective of his friends and therefore struggles with letting them go and do their own thing because he’s worried that if they do and they get hurt it will be his fault.

With Annabeth we mostly see her struggling with her doubts about if she can complete the quest her mother gave her. Basically, Annabeth is given the task of following the Mark of Athena and recovering the Athena Parthenos, which was stolen by the Romans several years before the story started and is now in the hands of the antagonists. This quest becomes even more important when it is learned that the recovery of the statue is important to fixing the gods’ case of fantasy dissociative identity disorder(don’t ask).

Piper’s issue is honestly mostly petty drama with her boyfriend who spends most of this book passed out so we’re skipping over that dumpster fire to talk about Leo. So Leo’s issue is due to the fact that he is something of the odd man out in the group of heroes. Leo has a lot of issues combining to make him the proverbial black sheep with the two most notable being that his being possessed by ghosts at the start of the book starts a fair bit of the book’s conflict and the fact that he is the only member of the seven to not be in a relationship. The second one may seem minor by comparison but given that there are several points where he is referred to as a seventh wheel it’s pretty clear that it affects him a lot.

I honestly have to say that I enjoyed this book more than the previous two in the series. Not that the first two were bad it’s just that most of the “character development” there was a character getting over trauma related to one of their powers or with Percy and Jason dealing with their amnesia (long story). In conclusion, I would say that this series is definitely a good one and that its author really earned his title of “the storyteller of the gods.”

The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan is available to check out from the Mission Viejo Library. It is also available to download for free from Libby.

Demigods and Magicians by Rick Riordan

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This is another amazing book by Rick Riordan!  Rick Riordan writes about many different mythologies such as Greek, Roman, Norse, and Egyptian. This books features Percy and Annabeth, a couple who are involved with Greek mythology and Sadie and Carter Kane, siblings who are involved in Egyptian mythology.  This isn’t a conventional book in that it is composed of three short stories and a sneak peek of one of his books about Norse mythology, The Hidden Oracle. 

The first story is about Percy and Carter meeting and their unusual fight against an enormous petsuchos, the gigantic crocodile son of the Egyptian crocodile god Sobek. The boys fought and were confused when they first meet as they figured out that more than just one mythology was real. They defeated the monster but felt as though they’d opened a door that wouldn’t be closed.

In the second story, Annabeth meets Sadie and they join forces to stop the past, present, and future from joining together so the Egyptian god of the Underworld, Serapis, can rise.  Annabeth eliminates the god’s future so he can’t exist anymore.  The girls exchange cell phone numbers and agree to contact each other only in emergencies.

In the third story, Percy, Annabeth, Carter, and Sadie all fight a long battle against Setne, an Egyptian magician who came back from the dead to try to mix Greek and Egyptian powers to try to turn himself into a god. After the four defeat him, they decide to keep everything to themselves and stay in contact.

I loved reading the sneak peek because it interested me enough to go check out the full book, which I loved.  There are more books in the series and it’s a great read.

All in all I enjoyed this book a lot.  It answers those questions you sometimes think about, like ‘what would happen if the characters in my two favorite book series met?’  I definitely recommend this book; although it helps to read the series about Percy and Annabeth and the series about Sadie and Carter beforehand because they help you understand the characters and their story.

– Kaitlyn S.

Demigods & Magicians by Rick Riordan is available at the Mission Viejo Library