The Mark of Athena

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