Thoughtful Thursdays: Book Review: The House of Hades by Rick Riordan

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And again, I return from Rick Riordan’s world of myth and monsters to fangirl about.... *ahem* review his beautiful, wonderful, downright amazing Heroes of Olympus series. Specifically the fourth book.

Summary: House of Hades begins shortly after the cliffhanger ending of Mark of Athena (thanks for that, by the way, Rick). With Percy and Annabeth gone, the other six demigods race to Epirus, desperate to rescue their friends and close the Doors of Death before Gaea’s army rises completely. But with the earth goddess and her cronies thwarting them at every turn, monsters and giants and ill-tempered immortals making every day difficult, every fight near-impossible, how will they ever reach the Doors in time?

Review: Forget stars; I’m just gonna give House of Hades five constellations: the Leo, the Perseus, the Pegasus, the Centaurus, and the Huntress. Maybe a supernova, too. Or heck, even a planet: Venus, Pluto, Neptune, Jupiter...

But enough with the stupid puns.

At the risk of sounding like a fangirl (which I totally am), I’m in love with this book. I’m in awe of this book. The feels in one chapter alone are enough to judo-flip you like Annabeth did Percy in Mark of Athena.

Plus, the plot was pure awesomeness. Filled with Riordan’s signature hilarity, House of Hades was engrossing, intriguing, and action-packed. Though it’s not technically a mystery, there was a ton of suspense, too, whatwith the POV switches at the most inopportune moments, and not knowing if certain characters were all right, or even alive, for twenty or thirty pages. But, no matter how terrified I was that my favorite heroes were about to meet horrific ends, Riordan always slipped a spark of (often hilarious) hope in the darkness.

I tell you, this man is a genius.

Even though I hated the not-knowing (and would often skip ahead to make sure my babies were OK), the book’s pacing was pretty good, carefully building up to the epic climax, final battle, and sad, but beautiful ending.

No, I'm not tearing up. Not even a little bit.

Now for the characters: OH MY GODS is all I have to say.

The End.

OK, not really. I actually have a lot more.

I love that these books are about more than one person; there are so many characters, so many to love, yet I don’t feel overwhelmed, or like the story is lopsided, focusing too much on only one. My heart just swells with enough adoration to go around.

Of course the more people I love, the more Uncle Rick has to kill off and break my heart, but I’m willing to take that chance.

I think.

Like the other books, I felt that each character came alive, almost like they could be real people – if, you know, Greek gods and such existed. They each had their own strengths, weaknesses, secrets, and complexities, the sweet little quirks in their personalities that made them deeper, better characters.

At the same time, I’ll admit that in previous books, some of them felt slightly less like real people (read Jason, Piper, and Leo) than others. I don’t know; I just never liked them as much as Hazel, Frank, Nico, Percy, Annabeth, or even Reyna.

But in this one, they were all awesome. Leo was freaking boss. Don’t wanna give any spoilers, but holy stinking Hephaestus. This kid has skills. Serious skills.

Piper stepped up and actually did stuff in this book. Not to say that she was useless before (because, so not), just that she felt like a background character sometimes in Mark of Athena. I liked her, but... eh. It just wasn’t the same.

But nope, she definitely did her share of shining in House of Hades.

I still say Jason’s too perfect for his own good, but I also liked seeing his indecision (that sounds great doesn’t it?) as he struggled to balance his Roman side with his newfound Greekness. Seeing the golden boy have some difficulties made him more relatable than he was before.

Sorry if that sounds mean, but it’s the honest truth.

Found on DeviantArt. By Dropletx1

Now for the characters I always loved: everybody knows Percy Jackson is wonderful. Really, nuff said. But he also took a slightly darker turn at one point, and seeing that other side of him was interesting to say the least. I’m curious about how that develops in Blood of Olympus, as well as how he and Annabeth deal with their trip through (spoilers!) and coming back.

Speaking of Annabeth, we all know this girl is as much a genius as Athena herself, but her strategy for defeating Nyx was stinking, hysterical genius. I died laughing. There was other awesomeness from Annabeth, of course, but that was my favorite. I totally officially love her. Well, I did before, but now I officially love her more.

I’m fangirling, aren’t I? Well, I did kinda warn you.

Moving on...

Frank and Hazel have had the most beautiful character developments of anybody in the series. Going from shy, quiet followers intimidated by their peers (Frank especially), to pretty much saving the day in this book, I just fell in love with how far they’ve come. The way he takes charge in the last battle, the way she stands up to a goddess, defeats a powerful witch, and protects her friends at the same time, I was just like “You go! Be awesome, hons, be awesome!” I mean, Frank freaking becomes praetor and commands a legion of dead people, while Hazel outwits an immortal sorceress, using her own trap against her.

These two are straight-up phenomenal.

Even Coach Hedge was pretty cool, with his “shoot first, apologize later” attitude, and even his character had some secrets, deeper reasons for acting the way he did.

They’re all just beautiful. Just wonderful. And I’m just sitting here like, “I LOVE YOU ALL!!!”

I could go on and on about others, like Reyna, Bob, Small Bob, Damasen, and of course Nico (if you’ve been reading for a while, you know how I... care deeply for the son of Hades {JUST LET SOMEBODY LOVE YOU, DARLING}). But for now, I’ll close by saying this: my sweetie smiled. And possibly laughed.

With that, I rest my case: this book is beast. Read it, read it now.

But, seriously, check out the other books first.

What have you been reading lately? If you’ve read this series, what do you think of it?

Oh, and here’s a link to my Pinterest board for the Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus series. That first picture is just about perfect for the seven.