The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan

December 12, 2017     erinthebooknut     Book review

The Lost Hero by Rick RiordanThe Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus, #1) by Rick Riordan
on October 12th 2010
Pages: 557
Goodreads

Jason has a problem.He doesn’t remember anything before waking up in a bus full of kids on a field trip. Apparently he has a girlfriend named Piper, and a best friend named Leo. They’re all students at a boarding school for “bad kids.” What did Jason do to end up here? And where is here, exactly?

Piper has a secret.Her father has been missing for three days, ever since she had that terrifying nightmare about his being in trouble. Piper doesn’t understand her dream, or why her boyfriend suddenly doesn’t recognize her. When a freak storm hits during the school trip, unleashing strange creatures and whisking her, Jason, and Leo away to someplace called Camp Half-Blood, she has a feeling she’s going to find out.

Leo has a way with tools.When he sees his cabin at Camp Half-Blood, filled with power tools and machine parts, he feels right at home. But there’s weird stuff, too—like the curse everyone keeps talking about, and some camper who's gone missing. Weirdest of all, his bunkmates insist that each of them—including Leo—is related to a god. Does this have anything to do with Jason's amnesia, or the fact that Leo keeps seeing ghosts?

3.5 Nuts

Here we are, jumping right back into Percy Jackson’s world folks! This series is really the entire reason you want to read that first set of books, for the set up of this one. Where The Olympians series is really middle grade in every way, Heroes of Olympus makes the jump into full on YA. The series is darker, the characters more complex, and the books significantly longer. There’s just more going on.

BUT.

Yes, there’s a but.

This first book takes some real effort getting into. Not that it’s bad by any means, it’s not at all. However this book starts out with the fact that the main hero, Percy, is missing. Missing meaning he’s not in this book. At all. After 5 books following Percy around you do get a bit of a shock of a book without him.

The main character is Jason, a kid with no memory of who or what he is. The book follows him around, along with several new demigod faces, to Camp Half Blood and beyond. The thing is the lack of Percy is incredibly noticeable to the point of distraction. You’re basically following three unknowns and having to learn about them as heroes without the benefit of the characters you’re familiar with. Except Annabeth.

Still, I really love this series, and this book does a lot of the heavy lifting set up wise for it. Rereading it (or listening in this case) gives me a much better opinion of it than the first time, when I rushed through as fast as I could to see Percy. Jason is certainly a different kind of hero, owning to his past which, shhhh, spoilers. Piper and Leo are great side characters which are treated more like mains in this series than they would have been in the previous one. I just really wanted more familiar characters right away rather than the shock of all these new ones right off the bat.

As for the audio, this series is  narrated by a different actor than the first. His voice is really good, though not enough of a standout to be distracting. Just like the last guy. It works, the switch isn’t distracting or annoying so you can listen without overthinking. He reads really well and its easy to just let yourself get lost as he tells the story. A+ narrator.

I really do recommend this series, I’m just a little bit critical of this first book. I love the extended length in these books and the darker tone. Riordan’s signature humor is still completely intact and really makes each book a joy to read. That alone would have kept me reading. These books grow up with the reader in the same way that series like Harry Potter do which gives them lasting power.

Really though, it’s book 2 I’m most excited about.

Onward with the reread!

What do you think about the Lost Hero? Share your thoughts in the comments below

From my shelf to yours,

Erin

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