Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Book Review: The Hidden Oracle

TITLE: The Hidden Oracle
Book 1 in The Trials of Apollo
AUTHOR: Rick Riordan
PUBLISHED: May 2016
CATEGORY: Middle-Grade/YA
GENRE: Fantasy/Adventure, Mythology tie-in
PREMISE: The god Apollo gets turned mortal (again) by his father as punishment. He starts his quest for redemption at Camp Half-Blood...
MY REVIEW: Honestly by now, there's probably not much I can say about the Rick Riordan books I haven't said a million times before. They're just damn enjoyable. Are they the most brilliant thing, ever? No. But Riordan has a good formula going and his sticks with it and knows how to work it right.
Now, he does do twists. The main one here, is that the hero is now a former god. So we get a view on the gods that we don't get with Percy and the demi-gods. Honestly, half of the enjoyment of this is watching Apollo adjust to being mortal and whine about the injustice of it all. Riordan is not afraid to put Apollo here in all his whiny and arrogant glory and the result is a surprisingly charming. By all rights, I shouldn't like Apollo. But damn it, I do.
As with all Riordan books, we get a fast paced adventure, promises of a more complicated plot and some very awesome side characters (Meg is everything). Normally, I am not a fan of spin-offs upon spin-offs of series. But Riordan is one of the few who manages to make it work.
WHO SHOULD READ: Percy Jackson fans, mythology fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five whiny gods trapped as teens

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