Tuesday, January 7, 2014

The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan

From Goodreads:

Jason has a problem.
He doesn't remember anything before waking up on a school bus holding hands with a girl. Apparently he has a girlfriend named Piper. His best friend is a kid named Leo, and they're all students in the Wilderness School, a boarding school for "bad kids", as Leo puts it. What he did to end up here, Jason has no idea—except that everything seems very wrong.

Piper has a secret.
Her father, a famous actor, has been missing for three days, and her vivid nightmares reveal that he's in terrible danger. Now her boyfriend doesn't recognize her, and when a freak storm and strange creatures attack during a school field trip, she, Jason, and Leo are whisked away to someplace called Camp Half-Blood. What is going on?

Leo has a way with tools.
His new cabin at Camp Half-Blood is filled with them. Seriously, the place beats Wilderness School hands down, with its weapons training, monsters, and fine-looking girls. What's troubling is the curse everyone keeps talking about, and that a camper's gone missing. Weirdest of all, his bunkmates insist they are all—including Leo—related to a god.


Oh how I love Rick Riordan and his fantastic adventure filled books! Erica recommended The Lost Hero to me as a good audiobook option and she was, as usual, giving me a good suggestion. The narrator can make or break a book and this one was fantastic. Which is funny because I feel like the first time I ever felt really attached to a narrator was the guy who narrated the Percy Jackson books (another Riordan series). So whoever is in charge of picking Riordan narrators is doing an excellent job and deserves a good pat on the head.

The formula here is familiar- demigods unaware of their origins finding out who their divine parents are and getting introduce to Camp Half Blood. It's a continuation of the Percy Jackson universe (except Percy has gone missing! Gasp!) and a fine addition at that. I always start by thinking, "I can't WAIT for my boys to be old enough to read these!" and then I forget about my boys and continue onward because I'M enjoying the story so thoroughly. I do have a minor complaint with The Lost Hero- I got kind of confused about their quest. They were all over the place geographically often with only a wisp of a plan and I kind of felt like maybe Riordan didn't know the end when he started and sort of stumbled upon it halfway through and just made it work. The book feels a bit more cobbled than its predecessors. It doesn't make it significantly less enjoyable though, and I've already put a hold on book 2.

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