The House of Hades

by Rick Riordan

Story summary: Sequel to The Lost Hero, The Son of Neptune, and The Mark of Athena, as well as the first "Percy Jackson & the Olympians" series. In this one, everything gets worse, as the poor demigods have to fight with Titans, giants, strange cows, and sorceresses, as well as heartbreak, loneliness, fear, and much physical pain.

Thoughts: I never quite like Riordan's middle books as much as the the first and last books. In fact, even though I remember loving the first Percy Jackson series a lot, when I think back, I realize I only skimmed through some of the middle books. So I definitely think Riordan has improved since then. However, this still did feel very much like a middle book, and I think it was my least favourite of the new series so far. This series is also considerably less funny than the first series, which is too bad since it was one of my favourite parts of the first series.

But there was a lot of Nico in this one, which made me extremely happy. He has always been my favourite character. There was quite an interesting development in this one, which is now the talk of Tumblr. I don't want to spoil too much, but suffice it to say, I think it was handled in a fashion perfectly in keeping with the teachings of the Church.

Grade: 3 stars