Book 235: The Demigod Diaries (The Heroes of Olympus) – Rick Riordan

This is the second collection of short stories Riordan released in his Greco-Roman young adult series. I actually preferred this collection to the first, The Demigod Files, but I think that comes from the length of the stories and the inclusion of the final story in this selection by Riordan’s son, Haley. In addition this was the 18th library book I’ve read this year, which is pretty impressive for me and I’m excited to be supporting the library more and more these days.

The four short stories in this collection are The Diary of Luke Castellan, Percy Jackson and the Staff of Hermes, Leo Valdez and the Quest for Buford and Son of Magic. Each one of these stories stands out and included different characters which I think is why I enjoyed this collection better than the first, but as mentioned above Son of Magic is what made this collection.

I’m not sure if I loved Son of Magic more because I knew it was Riordan’s teenage son or because it was so incredibly unique and well written, but needless to say it was the jewel in this collection. Riordan’s son created a SHORT STORY that was gut wrenching, entertaining and thoughtful all in one go. I mean think about it, short stories are supposed to be the most difficult thing to write, with the exception of poetry maybe? You have an incredibly limited amount of space to write a cohesive story and to get a lot of information across. And what was great about this was that it could stand alone on its own, even without the background of The Percy Jackson universe. There were quite a few tie backs, but they weren’t critical to keep the story moving forward.

Recommendation: I would definitely recommend this if only for you to read Son of Magic. As I’ve said above I’m not sure how much editing the story went through, but even the ideas of it are wondrous coming from a 16-year-old (I think he was 16 when he wrote it).