The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus, #4) by Rick Riordan on October 8th 2013
Pages: 597
Goodreads
At the conclusion of The Mark of Athena, Annabeth and Percy tumble into a pit leading straight to the Underworld. The other five demigods have to put aside their grief and follow Percy’s instructions to find the mortal side of the Doors of Death. If they can fight their way through the Gaea’s forces, and Percy and Annabeth can survive the House of Hades, then the Seven will be able to seal the Doors both sides and prevent the giants from raising Gaea. But, Leo wonders, if the Doors are sealed, how will Percy and Annabeth be able to escape?
They have no choice. If the demigods don’t succeed, Gaea’s armies will never die. They have no time. In about a month, the Romans will march on Camp Half-Blood. The stakes are higher than ever in this adventure that dives into the depths of Tartarus.
4 Nuts
Where the early books in this series are on the simple side, the fourth installment is far from that. HOUSE OF HADES is a heck of a trip around the Mediterranean. I mean our heroes stop EVERYWHERE while getting into also sorts of hijinks with minor gods, thieving dwarves, and many monsters. This is not your starter book, this is full blown war.
The one negative I have to say and get out of the way first. While I love all the hijinks and such there is SO much travel in this book. Travel, incident, travel, problem, travel, craziness, travel, travel, big fight. It does get a little repetitive at times.
HOWEVER, it is a great addition to the series. Seriously these books absolutely destroy their predecessors. I mean, I like the Percy series but these are a million times better.
Percy and Annabeth spend this entire book pretty much alone, being an epic power couple and killing it in Tartarus. If literally anyone else got stuck in Tartarus they’d be dead in a second but not these two. Also I will go down with this ship.
Speaking of Percabeth, they meet up with a little known character in the Percyverse, Bob the titan. Some may remember Bob from the short story PERCY JACKSON AND THE SWORD OF HADES. Well he suddenly becomes important several books later. And he’s just as precious as he always was. Raise a glass for Bob!
So many characters get some great development in this book. Hazel, Jason, Reina, Frank, and especially Nico. They all get wonderful character moments. My personal favorite was Nico, which was PERFECT! Nico, my precious goth death child. I’ve always loved him, even when he’s being a broody dick. So if more of this Nico stuff is coming in BLOOD OF OLYMPUS I will be a happy camper.
Mostly this book just got me excited for the last one. I can’t wait to finish this series and finally say I read all of them. And then of course move on to TRIALS OF APOLLO. I highly recommend this book for Percy and Riordan fans, as well as anyone who likes mythologies.
What do you think of HOUSE OF HADES? Share your thoughts in the comments.
From my shelf to yours,
Erin
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