Author: Rick Riordan
Genres: Fantasy, Mid-Grade
Format: Paperback
Pages: 381 Pages
Publication Date: 01/25/2011
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
★★★☆☆
All year the half-bloods have been preparing for battle against the Titans, knowing the odds are against them. Kronos is stronger than ever, and with every god and half-blood he recruits, his power only grows.
In this momentous final book in the New York Times best-selling series, the prophecy surrounding Percy's sixteenth birthday unfolds. And as the battle for Western civilization rages on the streets of Manhattan, Percy faces a terrifying suspicion that he may be fighting against his own fate.
This book was unnecessarily long.
Let me jump right in and tell you why I don't feel like this book deserved more than three stars. It's highly rated on both Goodreads and Amazon and it distresses me to mark this book so low when it ordinarily rates so high.
But here it is: The book was too long, and during the entire middle portion of the book (roughly one half, but potentially as much as two thirds of the middle section of the novel), nothing happened.
Okay, okay. Before readers who've read this ahead argue with me that there's plenty of action in this book, allow me to clarify that there most certainly is action throughout The Last Olympian. It's one battle scene after another after another and I'd say that certainly qualifies as being "action" in a book of this nature.
If that's your thing, and you like action regardless of plot, you're going to do great with this book. For me, this sort of reading drops a book almost instantly to a two-star status for me. And if it wasn't part of a series, a one-star status.
Yep. I'm telling you I almost couldn't finish the final book in a series.
That one thing actually almost killed the book for me. It's rare that I don't finish though, and this was the last book in a series, so I kept pushing through.
The beginning and the end of this book saved it for me. There are two things that won me back over to Riordan's side on this one.
First, that the book starts relatively strong. It might not start immediately with the battle, but we get to battle quickly enough to catch your attention. (I do wish, however, that Riordan had laid off the love triangle fad).
It gets emotional right out of the gate, and we don't have to wait to find out how the war is going to affect the denizens of New York or the heroes of Camp Half-Blood. This is good news, and the way that this book began set me about spending three days reading and bawling through the entire novel.
Unfortunately, it turns out that pure emotion isn't enough to sustain me when reading a book. I definitely want plot, and that's what was lacking here. I cannot say that the story lacked action, but it certainly lacked action on the plot.
Nothing happened for perhaps 200 pages. Half-bloods battled monsters, and Kronos made a few appearances, but the story didn't move forward. For two hundred or so pages, Riordan didn't answer some of the key questions presented by the story line (and in particular, the prophecy).
And let's not forget those two dirty words: love triangle. If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you probably already know that I loathe love triangles. Beside which, this story didn't need romance at all, let alone the introduction of tension in the primary relationship.
What is with the notion that all stories must involve romance to be interesting?
Without the last hundred pages, this book would have remained at a simple two-star rating (and I feel bad about that). Those last hundred pages, however, effectively cleared up all of the questions (in a way that didn't leave me feeling rushed), and brought so much valid emotion to the party that they fulfilled my needs as an adult female reader.
In the end, I loved (most of) the relationships. I loved (most of) the outcomes. Riordan gave a couple of unexpected twists to the story that I hadn't predicted until late enough in the story to keep me entertained and guessing.
These are good things, but they weren't enough to bring this story up to a five-star rating for me.
I'll be reviewing the series as a whole in a separate blog post.
Let me jump right in and tell you why I don't feel like this book deserved more than three stars. It's highly rated on both Goodreads and Amazon and it distresses me to mark this book so low when it ordinarily rates so high.
But here it is: The book was too long, and during the entire middle portion of the book (roughly one half, but potentially as much as two thirds of the middle section of the novel), nothing happened.
Okay, okay. Before readers who've read this ahead argue with me that there's plenty of action in this book, allow me to clarify that there most certainly is action throughout The Last Olympian. It's one battle scene after another after another and I'd say that certainly qualifies as being "action" in a book of this nature.
If that's your thing, and you like action regardless of plot, you're going to do great with this book. For me, this sort of reading drops a book almost instantly to a two-star status for me. And if it wasn't part of a series, a one-star status.
Yep. I'm telling you I almost couldn't finish the final book in a series.
That one thing actually almost killed the book for me. It's rare that I don't finish though, and this was the last book in a series, so I kept pushing through.
The beginning and the end of this book saved it for me. There are two things that won me back over to Riordan's side on this one.
First, that the book starts relatively strong. It might not start immediately with the battle, but we get to battle quickly enough to catch your attention. (I do wish, however, that Riordan had laid off the love triangle fad).
It gets emotional right out of the gate, and we don't have to wait to find out how the war is going to affect the denizens of New York or the heroes of Camp Half-Blood. This is good news, and the way that this book began set me about spending three days reading and bawling through the entire novel.
Unfortunately, it turns out that pure emotion isn't enough to sustain me when reading a book. I definitely want plot, and that's what was lacking here. I cannot say that the story lacked action, but it certainly lacked action on the plot.
Nothing happened for perhaps 200 pages. Half-bloods battled monsters, and Kronos made a few appearances, but the story didn't move forward. For two hundred or so pages, Riordan didn't answer some of the key questions presented by the story line (and in particular, the prophecy).
And let's not forget those two dirty words: love triangle. If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you probably already know that I loathe love triangles. Beside which, this story didn't need romance at all, let alone the introduction of tension in the primary relationship.
What is with the notion that all stories must involve romance to be interesting?
Without the last hundred pages, this book would have remained at a simple two-star rating (and I feel bad about that). Those last hundred pages, however, effectively cleared up all of the questions (in a way that didn't leave me feeling rushed), and brought so much valid emotion to the party that they fulfilled my needs as an adult female reader.
In the end, I loved (most of) the relationships. I loved (most of) the outcomes. Riordan gave a couple of unexpected twists to the story that I hadn't predicted until late enough in the story to keep me entertained and guessing.
These are good things, but they weren't enough to bring this story up to a five-star rating for me.
I'll be reviewing the series as a whole in a separate blog post.
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