Yesterday I wrote about reading my first Advance Reader’s Copy of a novel and promised the review and here it is. As mentioned yesterday, this is an advance copy provided by the publisher and I did not receive compensation to review this novel. The views and opinions in this post are my own.
It’s hard to know where to begin, thus yesterday’s post, but I’ll just delve right in. As with most of the novels I read I’ve only selected a few things to focus on for this post.
Overall, I thought the novel was interesting and well written. Judith, raised by her religious father, is a 10-year old living in England and is facing what she believes (and her religion often believes at various intervals) is the end times. Told from Judith’s point of view the story did have some issues occasionally, but this worked well for most of the novel. Her language, and even her emotional reactions/descriptions, often times switched into what I felt was an older child. Although described as quick and advanced for her age and not having habits like most children, I can see why Judith’s voice would come across older, but sometimes it was just too much of a stretch (and not like she was mimicking adults, but almost like her voice was lost in the writer’s voice).
Well I finally got bored with the series, but I’m glad I read them (and will finish the series as they are released). The action within the novel was fascinating and the stories only added to the complexity of the overall world, but I wasn’t wowed or taken by surprise this time and that’s how it has been for the past three novels (last two more so).
In book two of The Heroes of Olympus cycle, Riordan comes through on the perceived promise of keeping things as exciting as in The Percy Jackson and the Olympians cycle. I’ve already discussed my lack of enthusiasm over the Kane Chronicles so I’ll move right in to this review/summary/pontification.
With The Lost Hero Riordan sucked me into a new series. It definitely helped that this was a continuation of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. It also helped that the Greek pantheon has a stronger sway on mythology and fables that I learned growing up than the Egyptian pantheon which appeared in The Kane Chronicles. I had no intentions of reading this book any time soon, but it came in at the library and I had to read it or send it back. Thankfully I enjoyed it and it was a quick read (550ish pages in two days).
This is one of the most hauntingly beautiful novels I have read. I had some inclinations of how beautiful it was from reading the synopsis and reading Robert’s review and author post over at