The Mark of Athena
Ratings468
Average rating4.2
This was my favorite book in the series so far!! 5 out of 5 stars!
What an adventure! The seven have finally come together in order to stop Gaea from rising–which means, my favorite characters from the series are back! (i.e. Leo and Annabeth–these two are probably my favorite POV characters. Leo, because he's fun and he keeps things light when compared to the much more serious tones we get from the other characters. Annabeth, because she's always been a character that I could relate to).
Some noteworthy things to mention about The Mark of Athena:
The ending! I'll admit, I cried so hard during that last scene in the cavern. Even though the whole time I was thinking about how stupid the seven of them were standing around and talking in a cavern whose freaking floor was about to crumble beneath you and leads to freaking Tartarus! Seriously, if I were Annabeth, first thing I'd do is tell my friends to get us the hell out of there because this shit ain't stable, and my ankle is broken, and, I don't know about you guys, but I want to be as far away from this cursed place as possible. But that had to happen. It had to in order for the seven to have a chance of closing the Doors of Death.
Another surprising thing about this book: Piper. My opinion of her has completely changed since the whole nymphaeum scene. She was resourceful. She understood the situation and trusted herself. I respect that. I honestly didn't think much of her in The Lost Hero. She was pining for Jason too much and she always presented herself as the victim, that I just couldn't find much to relate to in her character–other than being vegetarian. But her true colors were really able to shine in this book (even though at the beginning it was always “Jason this” and “Jason that”...I swear, she didn't do much in the first hundred pages other than watch Jason recover from injuries and worry about the images she would glimpse in Katoptris). Hopefully, Riordan will continue to write her POV chapters this same way. She needs to learn to just be herself and I think she's really starting to be who she wants to be, rather than always thinking about what other people want her to be and look like. The cornucopia is a “weapon” that she is much more comfortable using versus Katoptris, and she knows this. She even states in one of these last chapters that “the next time she got a chance, Piper swore she would melt down Katoptris and sell it for scrap metal.” That's what I like to hear! Get it, girl.
To sum up this review: definitely pick this series up if you are a Percy Jackson fan! Book three was well worth reading the first two books (which were also very good). You won't regret it! =) Also check out some cool demigod art:
Heroes of Olympus by *viria13 on deviantART
Cliff-hanger in the end (It was expected).
The book is still great, capturing Piper's, Leo's and Annabeth's lives beautifully. Defiantly a “must read”. Eagerly waiting for the next book, The House Of Hades.
Rick Riordan does a very good job of taking Greek and Roman mythology and bringing them into the modern world. After all, he has been doing it for 8 books now. And it is starting to feel wrote and mundane.
I have enjoyed the Heroes of Olympus books so far, and found The Mark of Athena to continue to be enjoyable. But Riordan falls prey to the far too common trope of the cliffhanger. One of the aspects I most enjoyed in his Percy Jackson and the Olympians series was that each book resolved. The overarching conflict was always present, and each book moved that forward some. Once each book was over, though, you had a sense of completion, resolution.
With The Mark of Athena, the characters go through some of the same trials they have gone through in the previous books, have a main conflict to resolve, which they do. And then main characters are put into mortal peril and the book just sort of ends. Big cliffhanger. I enjoyed the story, but I suppose it is all starting to feel a little same.
Short Review: The first two books of this series felt like introductions (or prequels) but this book the action takes off. All 7 heroes are together and headed toward Rome to save Nico and stop Gaia. This book is really mostly about Annabeth and it is about time that she takes lead in a book.
For a longer review go to my blog at http://bookwi.se/mark-of-athena/
Really good! I hate having to wait another year to come closer to finishing the story though. worth the read! Cover slightly misleading. no huge epic battle between Jason and Percy.....