#62 A Review of The Titan’s Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series #3) by Rick Riordan

Rick Riordan is back with the third book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, The Titan’s Curse.  Based on Greek mythology and the Olympic gods, Riordan’s series chronicles the life of Percy Jackson, the son of Poseidon and a mortal.  This time, Percy finds himself on yet another quest from the Oracle and provides us with another action packed adventure.

 

Kronos is getting stronger and stronger thanks to Hermes’ son Luke’s recruiting.  The satyrs are being sent all over the country to try and find new demigods to help protect Camp Half-Blood and Mount Olympus.  Grover sends an urgent message to Percy asking for his assistance in bringing two new demigods back to camp for training.  It’s during this rescue mission that things take a turn for the worse, causing Annabeth to disappear.  The God Artemis shows up with a group of immortal young women, known as the hunters, to try to help in this demigod rescue.  During the attack, Artemis realizes that there is a plan to release a very large and ancient mythological monster, and that she must track it down and kill it before it can destroy Olympus.  Will Artemis stop this monster in time, or will she become just another victim in Kronos’s plan?  Will Percy and Grover be able to rescue their two new demigods, and will they ever find Annabeth?

The Titan’s Curse is definitely the game changing book in this series.  The characters are all starting to mature emotionally, physically, and mentally.  Percy especially is shedding the rash decision-making that made up so much of who he was in the first two books.  He’s starting to look at how his decisions affect others and is learning to take that into consideration.  We also see him begin to come to terms with his feelings for Annabeth and what hiding those feelings could result in.  Annabeth as well is learning what hiding her feelings could cost.

The other great thing about The Titan’s Curse is the new glimpses we get at the Gods.  The meeting held up at Olympus introduces us to all the Gods at once, and as such gives us a bit more information on each of them.  Each book seems to give us a meeting between Percy and another God, expanding the mythology lessons we get.  Artemis, Apollo, and Aphrodite are the big three we meet here.  We learn about how Artemis and Apollo got their duties with the Sun and Moon (the importance of these tales come into play in the later books).  Altogether, this interesting and pertinent background in mythology combines with the excitement of Riordan’s action scenes to make a wonderful third book in this series.  It definitely made me excited to try the next book (so much so that I made Todd go out and get me the next two books).  I highly recommend getting  the young adults in your life hooked on this series; there’s much to gain from it.

4 out of 5 Stars

The Titan’s Curse by Rick Riordan

Disney Hyperion (2008)

Paperback 336 pages

ISBN: 9781423101482