The Lost Hero

This post first published July 3, 2011.

Author: Rick Riordan
Published: October 2010
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Series: Heroes of Olympus #1
557 pages (hardcover)
 
This is the first book of a series-sequel to the entire Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. Heroes of Olympus takes place in the same world as Percy Jackson, about one year later. And boy does it start things off with a bang — Percy Jackson is missing! And another whirlwind adventure begins …

Our three new demigod heroes don’t know who the heck Percy Jackson is though, so they don’t really care too much at first, despite Annabeth’s worries. Our new heroes have their own issues to deal with, you know? First we have Jason, who wakes up on a bus full of delinquent children going to a delinquent school — and he has no idea how he got there. Jason’s memory has been completely wiped. Next, we have Leo, who seems to be haunted by dreams involving his old baby sitter, who turns out to be the goddess of family, Hera. Lastly, we have Piper, whose father is being held hostage by the giant Encheladus and she must turn over her two new friend, Jason and Leo, to have him back.
And on top of all these issues, the three find out they are part of the seven heroes from the prophecy made at the end of the fifth Percy Jackson book. No pressure, kids. It turns out they have to rescue the goddess Hera from a mysterious enemy who is even stronger than the Titans, but they won’t be able to do it alone, naturally. Worst part is, Zeus has decided that if you can ignore the problem, then it’s not really there, and he’s made all the other gods and goddesses do the same. So they don’t have much help in that department (even though the gods keep breaking the rules, heh). Oh yes, and did I mention PERCY JACKSON IS MISSING?? I didn’t realize it till now but dang, I love that kid.

I am once again in awe at how awesome Mr. Riordan is at mixing reality with Greek mythology. In fact, he has turned it up a notch and has introduced Roman mythology into the story as well! You might be thinking, “Doesn’t that kind of conflict with the story, or at least makes things terribly confusing, since now we have two names for every god?” Actually, no, not at all. The Roman mythology stuff fits seamlessly into the story. You don’t really find out its role until the end of the book, but throughout the story, Jason keeps referring to the gods by their Roman names and he seems to know a lot about ancient Rome, so you know it must be important, but you don’t really know until the very end. I don’t want to spoil the ending, but it relates to Percy’s disappearance and … I just … Omg, I just want the second book so badly now! It’s a bit of a cliffhanger ending, so I’m dying of curiosity now.

We do meet some old characters, such as Annabeth, Chiron and Thalia, but they are now minor characters. The new characters, our holy trio, is now Jason, Piper and Leo. I like all three of them. For some reason, I liked Jason the best, even though his memory has been wiped clean so he seems to be in a permanent state of ‘I-don’t-know’. I guess I just gravitate towards the cool, calm and collected.

I admit the villain confused me a bit in the beginning because each character was dreaming of a woman, or remembering a woman from the past, but none of the characters knew who the woman was. So I couldn’t tell if these were separate women, or if they were all thinking of the same woman. It became clearer ’round the midway point, but that is probably my only complaint, and a very minor one at that. I do love the big bad villain of this series though. If you have a bit of knowledge about Greek mythology, you can probably figure it out with all the clues in the book, but anyway, it is revealed at the end, and I’m really curious as to how they can possibly defeat the enemy as it’s bigger and badder than the Titans!

Loved the plot, loved the writing, loved the fun humor! It is, at heart, a kid’s book, but for those of you who are kids-at-heart, you’ll gobble this one up in no time. I can’t believe I put off reading this for so long! I won’t make the same mistake with book two, once I get my hands on a copy … the ending of The Lost Hero is so delicious, yet not enough to completely satisfy me because of the cliffhanger. I need to know what happens next!!

My Rating: 5/5