Book Review: The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan

Posted as part of Tween Tuesday, hosted by GreenBeanTeenQueen.
The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan
Publisher: Hyperion Book
Publication date: October 2010
ISBN: 9781423113393

Source: Library

The Heroes of Olympus, Book One: The Lost Hero

When Jason wakes up on a bus with no memory, he's in for a wild ride.  His girlfriend, Piper, and best friend, Leo, try to figure out why he can't remember them.  But when all three are attacked by some rogue wind spirits, they end up at Camp Half-Blood where morale is low.  Percy Jackson is missing and a new prophecy just might link the three of them to a new threat trying to destroy them all.  Piper has a secret, with nightmares disrupting her sleep and her father missing, she has to make a dangerous choice.  Leo feels comfortable with all the new tools he finds around himself, even if he still can't feel comfortable with his past.  The three heroes set out on a seemingly hopeless quest; will they be able to find and destroy this new threat before it is too late?

Things I Liked:
Another fantastic, spanking good time, action-packed and humor-laden new story.  I love the new characters we meet, especially Leo, who always has something funny to say and yet has a side of himself that he doesn't want to share with anyone else.  Piper rocks the beautiful tough girl persona and won me over quickly.  Jason was an intriguing mystery and kept me reading to figure out where his memory went.  Great fun, as I've come to expect from Riordan.  Here are some favorite parts:

"So...giants who can throw mountains.  Friendly wolves that will eat us if we show weakness.  Evil espresso drinks.  Gotcha.  Maybe this isn't the time to bring up my psycho babysitter." p 194
If you asked most kids, "Hey, you want to summon fire or lightning or magical makeup?" they'd think it sounded pretty cool.  But those powers went along with hard stuff, like sitting in a sewer in the middle of winter, running from monsters, losing your memory, watching your friends almost get cooked, and having dreams that warned you of your own death. p 288
A thousand years from now, when this quest was being told around a campfire, he figured people would talk about brave Jason, beautiful Piper, and their sidekick Flaming Valdez, who accompanied them with a bag of magic screwdrivers and occasionally fixed tofu burgers. p 384
Six guys who never bathed, with six armpits each.  Leo decided if he survived this day, he'd have to take a three-hour shower just to forget the stench. p 454
Things I Didn't Like:
I think what bothered me the most was that it was just too long.  The story just seemed to keep going and going and had a lot of sidelined plots that felt like just filler.  And the story was a bit predictable in places.  But, it's got lots of tween appeal - boys and girls, I think will devour this new series.


Read-alikes:
Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan

The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

BOOK CONTENT RATINGS:
s-factor: !
a few


mrg-factor: none

v-factor: ->->
some fighting and scary stuff, not bad


Overall rating: ****

What do you think of this kind of mythology story? Like them or dislike them?


If you buy through my Amazon linkage, I will get a very small percentage
 
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