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Ja! Percy Jackson ÄR tillbaka! På riktigt. Detta är INTE en övning!
Efter fem väldigt älskade böcker i Percy Jackson-serien, och de fem i Olympens hjältar (där han också är med) och gästspel i Magnus Chase- och Apollon-serierna så är han återigen huvudpersonen i ett nytt livsfarligt uppdrag för en grekisk gud!
Och det här kan visa sig bli det svåraste uppdraget Percy, Annabeth och Grover någonsin ställts inför. Varför? Jo, Percy vill ju väldigt gärna börja plugga på samma college som Annabeth. Han måste bara gå ut high school först (hans skolgång har ju varit lite stökig sedan han fick veta att han är son till Poseidon). Och få rekommendationsbrev från tre av Olympens gudar eller gudinnor före jullovet. Och det får man om man utför ett uppdrag. Behöver någon gud hjälp av en dödlig halvgud? Jodå! Ganymedes, vars uppgift det är att servera den nektar som gudarna dricker och som kan göra en dödlig odödlig, har blivit av med något väldigt, väldigt viktigt ...
Blir det farlig? Ja! Är det bråttom? Ja! Måste Percy verkligen göra det här? Ja! Blir det roligt också? ABSOLUT!
290 pages, Paperback
First published September 26, 2023
8356 people are currently reading
146918 people want to read
About the author
Rick Riordan
369 books452k followersRick Riordan is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of many books, including the Percy Jackson series.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 18,307 reviews
January 1, 2024
"Sitting down is easy. Getting up, not so much."
The nostalgia is so sweet with this one. I've had a pretty tough week, and boy was it perfect timing to be able to go on an adventure with Percy Jackson again. He was my very first best friend, and the comfort I felt turning every page of this will not be forgotten. Even if it feels like Rick will never leave me alone, his words will always be something I pine after. He knows how to drive a story home!
Every page of this felt like a throwback to a core memory we built together as a group of kids just wanting to go on an adventure. All of Percy's greatest hits lay before us so we could reminisce, and be reminded what it felt like to be a kid again. We're all grown up, and while Percy is still a teenager, he grew up with us, too. He's always had the sarcasm of his age and the courage to never actually act that way. With a Mom like Sally, how could he ever be anything but wise beyond his years? With Annabeth by his side, is it truly possible to be anything but special?
He's never really been given a break to be a kid. Being a half blood doesn't allow you the luxury. I'm almost thankful for it after reading this book simply because he learned so much faster than anyone else that growing up is the most important thing you can do in your life. Loving people, getting to live life beside them, that's the point.
Percy doesn't need anyone else to point that out for him, he knew it when the Gods gifted him immortality and he said no. But this book was a nice reminder that no matter what he does in his life, no matter how many monsters he must fight, the goal will always be to keep going with Annabeth and Grover. How sweet is that?
How did he grow up so fast? How is he going to be a big brother (we knew that). How on earth is he smarter, more caring, more understanding that anyone has ever given him credit for? I love that even when he's fighting monsters, he still tries to give them the benefit of the doubt and a chance. That he deals with Gods thousands of years old, and will always give them a chance to change their ways even when they absolutely do not deserve it.
He's a golden drachma if I've ever known one. I can't wait to see where his next search for a college letter will take him.
The nostalgia is so sweet with this one. I've had a pretty tough week, and boy was it perfect timing to be able to go on an adventure with Percy Jackson again. He was my very first best friend, and the comfort I felt turning every page of this will not be forgotten. Even if it feels like Rick will never leave me alone, his words will always be something I pine after. He knows how to drive a story home!
Every page of this felt like a throwback to a core memory we built together as a group of kids just wanting to go on an adventure. All of Percy's greatest hits lay before us so we could reminisce, and be reminded what it felt like to be a kid again. We're all grown up, and while Percy is still a teenager, he grew up with us, too. He's always had the sarcasm of his age and the courage to never actually act that way. With a Mom like Sally, how could he ever be anything but wise beyond his years? With Annabeth by his side, is it truly possible to be anything but special?
He's never really been given a break to be a kid. Being a half blood doesn't allow you the luxury. I'm almost thankful for it after reading this book simply because he learned so much faster than anyone else that growing up is the most important thing you can do in your life. Loving people, getting to live life beside them, that's the point.
Percy doesn't need anyone else to point that out for him, he knew it when the Gods gifted him immortality and he said no. But this book was a nice reminder that no matter what he does in his life, no matter how many monsters he must fight, the goal will always be to keep going with Annabeth and Grover. How sweet is that?
How did he grow up so fast? How is he going to be a big brother (we knew that). How on earth is he smarter, more caring, more understanding that anyone has ever given him credit for? I love that even when he's fighting monsters, he still tries to give them the benefit of the doubt and a chance. That he deals with Gods thousands of years old, and will always give them a chance to change their ways even when they absolutely do not deserve it.
He's a golden drachma if I've ever known one. I can't wait to see where his next search for a college letter will take him.
September 28, 2023
Quests, laughter, and full of nostalgia- what else can you want?!
PERCY JACKSON IS BACK BABY!!
My MOST anticipated read of the year and it delivered!
I read the first PJO book when I was in my early teens and I have loved this series since then. This is the series that really made me love reading. Don't get me wrong, Harry Potter was good but Percy Jackson was AMAZING 🫣 Percy will always be my first book boyfriend 🥹 Man's irreplaceable that way. I would in fact say, Percy and the other characters have been with me through almost all stages of life (given how many times I have reread it). Basically, what am saying is this series and world is special to me and getting to read it, experiencing it again was heartwarming.
The stakes are not high at all in this book but the fun is still there. There is no imminent danger to the world but maybe to Percy's college applications there is. We see the OG trio unite and it's like they were never apart. Grover, Annabeth and Percy make anything fun. Some of the things they mentioned were clearly meant for nostalgic purposes (I wish they would've included the dam joke).
I loved how our Wise Girl stayed true to her character. And Grover balancing the trio's chaos in his own innocent yet chaotic way. And I especially loved our Seaweed Brain, who was full of his usual sarcasm, foolishness, ready to battle and well being himself 🥹
I loved every moment of this book. I cried. I laughed. I cherished. And am not ready to let go. Rick, ffs write another 😭😭😭
~•~•~
HAPPY RELEASE DAY! My most anticipated read of the year and am SO EXCITEDDDD 🤩🤩
~•~•~
I WANT THIS. I NEED THIS. I LONG FOR THIS.
I STARVE FOR THIS. *Cries* it's been 84 years 😭😭😭
PERCY JACKSON IS BACK BABY!!
My MOST anticipated read of the year and it delivered!
I read the first PJO book when I was in my early teens and I have loved this series since then. This is the series that really made me love reading. Don't get me wrong, Harry Potter was good but Percy Jackson was AMAZING 🫣 Percy will always be my first book boyfriend 🥹 Man's irreplaceable that way. I would in fact say, Percy and the other characters have been with me through almost all stages of life (given how many times I have reread it). Basically, what am saying is this series and world is special to me and getting to read it, experiencing it again was heartwarming.
The stakes are not high at all in this book but the fun is still there. There is no imminent danger to the world but maybe to Percy's college applications there is. We see the OG trio unite and it's like they were never apart. Grover, Annabeth and Percy make anything fun. Some of the things they mentioned were clearly meant for nostalgic purposes (I wish they would've included the dam joke).
I loved how our Wise Girl stayed true to her character. And Grover balancing the trio's chaos in his own innocent yet chaotic way. And I especially loved our Seaweed Brain, who was full of his usual sarcasm, foolishness, ready to battle and well being himself 🥹
I loved every moment of this book. I cried. I laughed. I cherished. And am not ready to let go. Rick, ffs write another 😭😭😭
~•~•~
HAPPY RELEASE DAY! My most anticipated read of the year and am SO EXCITEDDDD 🤩🤩
~•~•~
I WANT THIS. I NEED THIS. I LONG FOR THIS.
I STARVE FOR THIS. *Cries* it's been 84 years 😭😭😭
Want to read
October 18, 2022IM GONNA CRY OMFG
Want to read
October 19, 2022will i be 24-years-old when this book releases? yes.
will i be seating my 24-year-old arse down to read this book? absolutely, i will be, yes.
will i be seating my 24-year-old arse down to read this book? absolutely, i will be, yes.
October 24, 2023
Se me hizo un poco infantil y no lo esperaba, pues la saga de los Héroes del Olimpo se siente bastante madura. De todos modos amé volver a tener a Percy como narrador. Pronto reseña completa :).
Want to read
October 19, 2022the way i am about to eat this shit up as a nearly 26 year old woman should be embarrassing. but i am here and i am
ready.
November 11, 2025
(B+) 76% | Good
Notes: All once again/remember when? nostalgia's fuel-injected, low-energy and monster-free: past vibes aren't quite reflected.
*Check out progress updates for detailed commentary:
Notes: All once again/remember when? nostalgia's fuel-injected, low-energy and monster-free: past vibes aren't quite reflected.
*Check out progress updates for detailed commentary:
Want to read
November 24, 2022RICK, BROOOOO, ANOTHER PERCY JACKSON ADVENTURE??? BUT THIS TIME ABOUT AN 18 YEAR OLD PERCY GOING TO COLLEGE?
YES, YES, YES, I'M IN!!! SIGN ME UP.
YES, YES, YES, I'M IN!!! SIGN ME UP.
January 9, 2025
Read it on Medium
I don’t usually take the time to write decent, respectful enough reviews for books I dislike, but because this series is one that raised me and will always be close to my heart, I’ve decided to sit down and fledge out my thoughts in full.
Percy Jackson and the Chalice of the Gods was the sequel that many people wanted, as indicated by the overwhelming amount of 5 star reviews gushing of “nostalgia” yada yada, but it is also the book that we didn’t really need.
I felt iffy about the plot from the beginning, as soon as I heard the premise - Percy goes on three quests to collect college recommendation letters? Weird to make a book out of three different side quests but fine, maybe all three of them together would make a cohesive book worthy of being called Percy Jackson #6.
Then the news broke that it wasn’t just Percy Jackson #6, it was going to be Percy Jackson #6, #7, and #8. One book for each lameass side quest. And that kind of drove me crazy.
The original series, in my opinion, is untouchable. It only gets better with each book, with the stakes rising each time until the Last Olympian, which is my favourite, finishes the series off perfectly. This book, Chalice of the Gods? Is nothing. There are no stakes. It’s a fun, family-style adventure, where most of the quests are “cruelty-free” so the monsters aren’t even killed.
Books #1-5 were about an all-out war between the gods and titans. Books #6-8 are going to be about college recommendation letters. Think about that for a second.
I mean, we can even compare the opening lines of Book 1 and 6 and see the blatant difference.
“Look, I didn’t want to be a half-blood.” and “Look, I didn’t want to be a high school senior.” Are you fucking kidding me?
Whatever. With that major peeve out of the way, I’ll move on to some other issues.
The tiktokification of Percy Jackson: I’m sorry, but I cannot stand the Gen Z lingo in this book (speaking as a Gen Z teenager myself). Percy makes a comment about Gods using GodTok. Percy says the word “boomer” 11 times in the Hebe chapters (I counted). Annabeth references Shallow, which came out in 2018. Like I’m sorry, last I checked, Percy Jackson was set in the early 2000s. Rick turning Percy into a Gen Z teenager is just so gross.
The humour: this book is funny sometimes, which would be okay if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s trying to be funny all the time. Jokes are dragged on, like the whole page dedicated to gods having brunch, which isn’t really as terrifying/lame as Percy makes it sound. There’s a snarky comment in every paragraph, and the overuse of sarcasm makes all of it fall flat. Less is more, Rick (something someone should have told you when you decided to write 3 extra sequels…)
The “awareness” aspect: I don’t think I worded that correctly, but what I mean is that the jokes that the Riordanverse fandom makes have resulted in Rick writing Percy as a caricature of himself. Percy calls himself sarcastic, like, a million times. He calls it a superpower. A chapter is called “I want my Mommy”. These things are funny when the fandom does it, like when the fandom nicknamed Percy “Persassy” and makes affectionate fun of him for being a mama’s boy. But Rick has fully leaned into the meme culture, and it makes the book unreadable because it’s turned into a parody of itself. Fanon has turned into canon in the cringiest ways possible.
The stakes: I’m sorry, I can’t take Percy seriously when he’s like genuinely talking about meeting his death through wrestling an old man or being eaten by snakes or drowning in a lake because like…he has gone through Hell. Literally. You can’t top that. You can’t make Percy have this emotional monologue in his head like he REALLY thinks he’s about to meet his death. You cannot expect me to believe that he is in even the slightest amount of danger because a) you announced two other books and b) HE HAS FACED WORSE!! Percy has been in SO MUCH MORE danger throughout his life that I really don’t think any of us, readers and author alike, need to pretend that we even half believe Percy when he says his life is at risk.
The plot: is…just…so…bad. The reasoning behind why the Gods won’t just let Percy go to college because he’s already fought Kronos/Gaia etc. is so fucking stupid. It’s justified in the stupidest fucking way. It’s a stupid fucking excuse to write this book and the ones that will follow. The scene where there’s like an extra condition on the list of rules that says “*This applies to Percy Jackson” made me SO angry. Everything is soo conveniently constructed against Percy Jackson just so Rick could write this book. Could Rick really not think of a better plot?
Percy himself: I don’t know why Rick makes Percy think of himself as so stupid. There’s a brilliant, kind of unhinged review that explains this in detail.
I have had people tell me to just think of the Chalice of the Gods as separate from the Percy Jackson series, but then why is it called Percy Jackson #6? If I’m supposed to detach Chalice of the Gods from the first five books, why make it book number six??? Rick said he was willing to write the sixth book as a way to promote the show/incentivize Disney into making the show, but goes on to say that he didn’t really need to in the end. So why did he do it anyway? And why did he turn one book into three? I really don’t see why he couldn’t have released them as three novellas, or a trilogy of their own right, so at least the original series would have stayed unblemished by this new Gen Z Percy era.
In my opinion, these new books are nothing short of a cash grab. Percy Jackson is a sell-out now, and it’s really disheartening to see. I’ve been a fan since 2014, when I was 7 and was given a copy of the Lightning Thief as a birthday present. I’m also still going to read the other books, even though I know they will make me terribly angry, because I do love the Riordanverse and I hate being left out of the loop. I’m also too deeply attached and too far in now to quit, I’ve read everything Rick’s ever written, with the exception of the Sun and the Star and Daughter of the Deep, both of which I own and will get to reading eventually.
I’m going to conclude with some things I actually liked about the book:
- The trio was cool and all
- Annabeth throwing Percy off a cliff
- Paul Blofis and Sally Jackson
- Grover was occasionally funny
- Annabeth getting Percy to skip around with a rainbow stick
+1 extra note: It's also very funny to me that Rick hasn't mentioned Annabeth's hair colour once. Probably because they've kept her brunette in the show, but still. This is the first Riordanverse book where she isn't described as blonde lol.
+ 2 extra bonus note: It is also so ironic to me that Rick wrote those scenes with Hebe selling nostalgia as if that isn’t exactly what he was doing with this book himself 💀
I don’t usually take the time to write decent, respectful enough reviews for books I dislike, but because this series is one that raised me and will always be close to my heart, I’ve decided to sit down and fledge out my thoughts in full.
Percy Jackson and the Chalice of the Gods was the sequel that many people wanted, as indicated by the overwhelming amount of 5 star reviews gushing of “nostalgia” yada yada, but it is also the book that we didn’t really need.
I felt iffy about the plot from the beginning, as soon as I heard the premise - Percy goes on three quests to collect college recommendation letters? Weird to make a book out of three different side quests but fine, maybe all three of them together would make a cohesive book worthy of being called Percy Jackson #6.
Then the news broke that it wasn’t just Percy Jackson #6, it was going to be Percy Jackson #6, #7, and #8. One book for each lameass side quest. And that kind of drove me crazy.
The original series, in my opinion, is untouchable. It only gets better with each book, with the stakes rising each time until the Last Olympian, which is my favourite, finishes the series off perfectly. This book, Chalice of the Gods? Is nothing. There are no stakes. It’s a fun, family-style adventure, where most of the quests are “cruelty-free” so the monsters aren’t even killed.
Books #1-5 were about an all-out war between the gods and titans. Books #6-8 are going to be about college recommendation letters. Think about that for a second.
I mean, we can even compare the opening lines of Book 1 and 6 and see the blatant difference.
“Look, I didn’t want to be a half-blood.” and “Look, I didn’t want to be a high school senior.” Are you fucking kidding me?
Whatever. With that major peeve out of the way, I’ll move on to some other issues.
The tiktokification of Percy Jackson: I’m sorry, but I cannot stand the Gen Z lingo in this book (speaking as a Gen Z teenager myself). Percy makes a comment about Gods using GodTok. Percy says the word “boomer” 11 times in the Hebe chapters (I counted). Annabeth references Shallow, which came out in 2018. Like I’m sorry, last I checked, Percy Jackson was set in the early 2000s. Rick turning Percy into a Gen Z teenager is just so gross.
The humour: this book is funny sometimes, which would be okay if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s trying to be funny all the time. Jokes are dragged on, like the whole page dedicated to gods having brunch, which isn’t really as terrifying/lame as Percy makes it sound. There’s a snarky comment in every paragraph, and the overuse of sarcasm makes all of it fall flat. Less is more, Rick (something someone should have told you when you decided to write 3 extra sequels…)
The “awareness” aspect: I don’t think I worded that correctly, but what I mean is that the jokes that the Riordanverse fandom makes have resulted in Rick writing Percy as a caricature of himself. Percy calls himself sarcastic, like, a million times. He calls it a superpower. A chapter is called “I want my Mommy”. These things are funny when the fandom does it, like when the fandom nicknamed Percy “Persassy” and makes affectionate fun of him for being a mama’s boy. But Rick has fully leaned into the meme culture, and it makes the book unreadable because it’s turned into a parody of itself. Fanon has turned into canon in the cringiest ways possible.
The stakes: I’m sorry, I can’t take Percy seriously when he’s like genuinely talking about meeting his death through wrestling an old man or being eaten by snakes or drowning in a lake because like…he has gone through Hell. Literally. You can’t top that. You can’t make Percy have this emotional monologue in his head like he REALLY thinks he’s about to meet his death. You cannot expect me to believe that he is in even the slightest amount of danger because a) you announced two other books and b) HE HAS FACED WORSE!! Percy has been in SO MUCH MORE danger throughout his life that I really don’t think any of us, readers and author alike, need to pretend that we even half believe Percy when he says his life is at risk.
The plot: is…just…so…bad. The reasoning behind why the Gods won’t just let Percy go to college because he’s already fought Kronos/Gaia etc. is so fucking stupid. It’s justified in the stupidest fucking way. It’s a stupid fucking excuse to write this book and the ones that will follow. The scene where there’s like an extra condition on the list of rules that says “*This applies to Percy Jackson” made me SO angry. Everything is soo conveniently constructed against Percy Jackson just so Rick could write this book. Could Rick really not think of a better plot?
Percy himself: I don’t know why Rick makes Percy think of himself as so stupid. There’s a brilliant, kind of unhinged review that explains this in detail.
I have had people tell me to just think of the Chalice of the Gods as separate from the Percy Jackson series, but then why is it called Percy Jackson #6? If I’m supposed to detach Chalice of the Gods from the first five books, why make it book number six??? Rick said he was willing to write the sixth book as a way to promote the show/incentivize Disney into making the show, but goes on to say that he didn’t really need to in the end. So why did he do it anyway? And why did he turn one book into three? I really don’t see why he couldn’t have released them as three novellas, or a trilogy of their own right, so at least the original series would have stayed unblemished by this new Gen Z Percy era.
In my opinion, these new books are nothing short of a cash grab. Percy Jackson is a sell-out now, and it’s really disheartening to see. I’ve been a fan since 2014, when I was 7 and was given a copy of the Lightning Thief as a birthday present. I’m also still going to read the other books, even though I know they will make me terribly angry, because I do love the Riordanverse and I hate being left out of the loop. I’m also too deeply attached and too far in now to quit, I’ve read everything Rick’s ever written, with the exception of the Sun and the Star and Daughter of the Deep, both of which I own and will get to reading eventually.
I’m going to conclude with some things I actually liked about the book:
- The trio was cool and all
- Annabeth throwing Percy off a cliff
- Paul Blofis and Sally Jackson
- Grover was occasionally funny
- Annabeth getting Percy to skip around with a rainbow stick
+1 extra note: It's also very funny to me that Rick hasn't mentioned Annabeth's hair colour once. Probably because they've kept her brunette in the show, but still. This is the first Riordanverse book where she isn't described as blonde lol.
+ 2 extra bonus note: It is also so ironic to me that Rick wrote those scenes with Hebe selling nostalgia as if that isn’t exactly what he was doing with this book himself 💀
Want to read
October 18, 2022PJO TRIO HOMECOMING!!
here's to everyone that grew up with these books😭😭🙏🏻
here's to everyone that grew up with these books😭😭🙏🏻
September 29, 2023
pre-read:
can someone PLEASE lock rick riordan in prison so he will leave percy jackson the fuck alone. LEAVE HIM ALONE. STOP WRITING MORE PERCY JACKSON BOOKS. STOP IT.
i am literally begging you to stop richard. PLEASE stop. PLEASE. just leave percy alone. he's been through enough. i thought trials of apollo was milking the franchise but oh my GOD he literally started writing "milking the franchise" novels.
no i have not read chalice of the gods. no i do not think it will be good. yes i am going to read chalice of the gods. i will not purchase it because i am not going to enable richard riordan's addiction to writing unnecessary novels in the pjo universe. but i need to know what the fuck is going on ok i am not immune to nostalgia but i am also really angry and if there is even one thing in percy annabeth or grovers characterization that is slightly off i am going to start biting someone. i do not trust this man with percy after blood of olympus or trials of apollo or god forbid the nico book. rick doesn't understand percy and i'm right about everything.
i'm also starting to feel like the pjo series was a give a monkey a typewriter situation. we shall see.
after reading:
ok. i promised i would hate this book. and i do. i hate this book. i also hate rick riordan. in addition, i hate capitalism. i promise that’s relevant.
let’s talk about the book now. i’ll cover the things i love first. i love percy jackson. i love grover. i love annabeth. i love sally. i love paul. i love percy annabeth and grover together. all of these things are very obvious and self-explanatory. percy is hands down THE main character of all time. i have nothing bad to say about him. his literal fatal flaw is loyalty. he’s actually perfect and has no flaws. this is expected from the son of sally jackson, the perfect person. paul is sweet and kind to sally and that’s really all that matters. annabeth is awesome and supportive and so is grover and they’re all besties forever. you get it. you’ve read percy jackson.
the jokes are better than before. there are definitely some legitimately funny jokes in this book, which i was really missing from the last few rick riordan installments. and i don’t think this is because rick suddenly got funnier. i think it’s because this style of joke works for percy. of all of rick’s protagonists, percy seems the most natural fit for these jokes.
sally is great. grover and annabeth are generally on form. so is percy, as much as can be expected from rick riordan at this point. i will elaborate on this later.
now to complain. this is the stupidest premise i’ve ever heard of. percy is a high school senior. he is going to go to new rome university. he needs 3 divine recommendations. this is already a stupid premise but don’t worry, it gets worse. poseidon reveals that the reason percy needs these recommendations is that it’s a special requirement for him specifically made by zeus. and the reason he gets to have this stupid requirement is that he’s a child of the big three and shouldn’t exist.
hello. zeus. yes, lord zeus, it’s me. alexis.
what the absolute FUCK are you saying.
this doesn’t MAKE SENSE. the only reason percy shouldn’t have existed was that the gods had a stupid pact to not have any kids because of a stupid prophecy. two things here. one - that prophecy is OVER. everything turned out fine. thanks to percy jackson. you’re welcome, gods of olympus. two - percy has literally saved olympus TWICE now. two times. this is genuinely such a dumb and made up reason to send percy on a quest that i can’t even turn my brain off and enjoy it. it’s not fun. leave percy alone. LEAVE HIM ALONE.
it’s literally insane how stupid this setup is. rick keeps writing books about how the gods are horrible and take advantage of the demigods and the demigods live terrible lives. in this book, percy has LITERALLY saved olympus TWICE and motherfucking zeus (literally) had to be talked down from making him get 25 letters of recommendation to 3. this is AFTER percy spent 3 years in pjo almost being killed and got his memory wiped for 6-8 months depending on which book you read in hoo and then got sent on a quest to save the entire world AGAIN. this CHILD got like a 2-4 month break (depending on which book you’re reading) and he woke up with no fucking memory and had to spend like 2 more months fighting monsters and the literal primordial earth goddess. and now he has to go on literally pointless quests that someone who didn’t just get back home from saving the actual world could ALSO just do. because he needs to get some fucking letters of recommendation.
look. genuinely. percy jackson should snap at this point in the story. this boy should’ve snapped like at least 5 books ago. at minimum. rick wrote the perfect setup to show us percy’s instant descent into madness. he should LOSE it. all the gods have done for the ENTIRE time he’s known he’s a demigod is treat demigods like disposable tools. this is the point in the story where percy goes. wow. luke was right. you guys are all assholes who don’t care about us even a little bit. i am NOT saying what needs to follow is a fanfic-esque dark!percy story where he successfully destroys olympus or something. what i AM saying. is at bare minimum this is where percy goes you know what fuck you i hate you guys and washes his hands of being a demigod at least temporarily. at the very least he should sit back and think yeah, i don’t really want to go to new rome university. it’s not worth it. i will just go to a different university. look. it’s percy jackson. he can literally one shot all but the most fearsome monsters (typhon, the giants, a drakon, etc). he is literally going to be 100% completely fine going to mortal university AND he wont have to deal with zeus’s annoying ass.
listen. MY percy jackson wanted to kill smelly gabe as a 12 year old because he abused his mother. MY percy jackson doesn’t like bullies. MY percy jackson challenged ares to a fight just on the basis that ares was a fucking asshole.
MY percy jackson is not going on useless fucking quests to go to new rome university of all places.
which reminds me. why DOES he want to go to new rome university. this is percy jackson. he LOVES new york. why is percy “what did they do to my city” jackson going to university ACROSS THE COUNTRY from the city he loves. why is he doing that. and hey look. sally and paul (and soon estelle) are ALSO going to be in new york. so like WHY is he leaving for real. percy my fatal flaw is loyalty jackson. IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE OK! it’s percy he is seriously not going to have issues with common monsters attacking him. we literally saw him fight off titans and giants a fucking hellhound isn’t gonna get his ass. WHY is he leaving. it does NOT make sense.
there’s this scene ok. where sally tells them she’s pregnant. and percy’s like oh my god…. i’m going to be in california…. and my sister is going to be here…. and i was just sitting there going. yeah bro. why are you going to california. i literally do not understand. you literally are from nyc. you live here. your family is here. your friends from chb are like a short pegasus ride away. there are like 50 universities in new york. just go here. why are you leaving. you are percy jackson. being a new yorker is literally one of your defining traits. stay here. WHY AR EYOU LEAVING I DO NOT UNDERSTAND PERSEUS
and listen. if your argument is that annabeth is going to be in nru. why the FUCK is ANNABETH going to nru!!!!! WHY WOULD SHE DO THAT!!!! EXPLAIN IT!!!! percy LITERALLY says annabeth is such an overachiever she’s already run out of ap classes to take. he literally says that. why the fuck is this girl going to nru where let’s be real her admission is guaranteed. annabeth is 100% someone who would want to go to an ivy. and would you fucking believe it there’s an ivy right here in nyc. like let’s be fucking realistic here. annabeth started her architecture career at SIXTEEN designing the city the fucking GODS live in. so like. don’t you think she’d want to be a bit more challenged. don’t you think she’d want to go to a university that is actually recognizable to mortals. annabeth did NOT love new rome that much like did richard forget what he wrote. this girl was freaking out about new rome until percy said he only likes it because they could live together there. she literally does not care about new rome and she is WAY too ambitious and academically inclined to be happy with going to some small as uni 99% of employers have never heard of.
this isn’t even the worst character assassination in the book. that award goes to the way rick wrote percy. percy. my darling percy. my beloved percy. perseus jackson. light of my life. as i said before, he is MOSTLY on form. the him really wanting to cali thing is definitely ooc for him but it is NOTHING compared to the sheer amount of times rick portrays percy as stupid in this accursed novel. his internal monologue is constantly shit like i’m always so behind annabeth and omg i’m being so dumb right now and annabeth calls me seaweed brain because i’m an idiot and blah blah fucking blah.
dick riordan has forgotten that perseus jackson is, in fact, not stupid at all. he is INCREDIBLY clever. he is just not particularly academically inclined/not very book smart and it would also be perfectly understandable given the fucking books that riordan wrote to interpret that as percy being very discouraged from engaging with his studies. he genuinely enjoys chiron’s class at yancy because chiron is an engaging teacher and encourages him. he spends 90% of his time in pjo deducing what’s going on with extremely limited information because rick decided none of the characters can tell him anything because of plot and exposition reasons. in son of neptune he literally just coasts on having sherlockian (not bbc that’s a whole other angry review) powers of deduction. to the point where the characters around him are amazed at how he’s figuring stuff out. literally in house of hades annabeth’s pov’s are constantly her commenting on how she gives percy shit for being a dumbass but he’s actually really clever.
it genuinely feels like at some point during the writing of mark of athena rick decided to just slowly start making various fanon ideas canon. percy being stupid is very commonly accepted fanon because he doesn’t realize how smart he is (and fans don’t realize he’s an unreliable narrator) and the fans also love to infantilize characters with more in your face adhd (leo is another victim of this phenomenon). we’ve spent 5 books in percy’s head and he doesn’t think he’s particularly clever so it makes sense to ignore the mountains of evidence pointing towards his quick and creative thought process in favour of haha percy is dumb jokes.
the wild thing is, percy isn’t even that hard on himself in pjo. he obviously doesn’t see himself in the same way we later come to find out other people see him (mainly thinking about hazel and frank in son of neptune, which is the only time in hoo he genuinely feels like the same character as pjo percy) but he’s not really dealing with crazy self doubt and self esteem issues. he does have his down on himself moments but they’re all extremely understandable given the context because he literally faces impossible odds in every single pjo book. at one point he’s disappointed he couldn’t tell that ares and luke manipulated him… like yes bestie that’s a very valid thing to feel upset and betrayed about. it doesn’t mean that he’s actually stupid though and genuinely he comes across more as humble and not realizing just how awesome and cool and interesting he is than anything else. percy consistently shows that he is really clever. half of pjo is percy figuring out a new and interesting way of defeating his enemies and the other half is percy figuring out how to bait his enemies into a duel to improve his odds. it’s horrible what rick does to percy in his internal monologue.
it’s to an insane degree. yes i realize i have already written 500 words about percy not being stupid alone but i must stress how egregious this is. it’s literally characters who have previously acknowledged percy’s intelligence who start remarking about how he’s stupid. in house of hades percy and annabeth get out of fucking TARTARUS and reyna makes a jab about how percy wouldn’t be able to find his way out of a paper bag without annabeth. that is an INSANE thing to say for reyna and for rick. rick has not written a stupid character so it’s weird to make that something a character does without really trying to show them being wrong. from reyna’s perspective, this is a guy she was complimenting a few short weeks ago. this is a guy she immediately wanted to make a leader at the camp that she loves and is her home. this is guy she barely knows and she pretty much immediately proposes to him. WHY would she suddenly start making jokes about how dumb he is? it’s not like she actually knows him better now. he came to the battle with reinforcements and basically immediately dipped after the feast. how are we to accept reyna treating our beloved perseus in this horrific manner? we simply cannot. it is unnacceptable. this is inaccurate.
it’s so WRONG to do this to percy. yES I UNDERSTAND I HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT THIS FOR TOO LONG. I DON’T CARE. PERCY JACKSON IS MY BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE AND I NEED TO DEFEND HIM FROM THIS SLANDER. I AM ONLY PARTIALLY JOKING. listen. liSTEN. this is the guy whose signature move is manipulate your enemy into dueling with you when you’re outnumbered or outmatched. he very coolly manipulated bob into killing his own brother (btw this was very hot and sexy and clever and attractive perseus is king of gaslight gatekeep girlboss). he is NOT stupid. he is impulsive. he is extremely oblivious about some things. he is NOT stupid. i watched perseus jackson grow up for 5 books and he is not stupid. i always say this. i always say that percy is not stupid and richard riordan refuses to listen to me.
there are such horrendous lines as “i am a guy of limited talents. if i can’t kill it with water, a sword, or sarcasm, i’m basically defenseless.” richard how DARE you say this about my beloved perseus. he is NEVER like this. he literally would never say that. even at absolute worst percy’s internal monologue was “this plan is stupid and will get us killed. but it’s the plan i have.” he’s NOT a being defenseless guy. what hte fuck are you saying. richard did you read your own books. RICHARD. DID YOU. at one point he says that he is constantly several steps behind annabeth’s thought process. he has literally never thought this before and it is also untrue. richard. i hate you. read your own fucking books oh my god.
ok. i think i have sufficiently harped on the fact that percy is not stupid. now i will complain about another thing. and this was just in one part but it bothered me and this is my review so i get to talk about whatever i want. if you don’t like it read someone else’s review. don’t hate read my review. i didn't charge you money to read it
at one point, percy has to wrestle a god who hercules once wrestled. and annabeth says something about hercules brute forcing it. and look. i GET that hercules was freakishly strong. i get that. i understand it. but when annabeth says hercules just brute forced it they’re both like ah shit i can’t do that. perseus. beloved. you ripped the minotaurs horn off its head with your bare hands as a 12 year old with no training. you are literally insanely strong as is. that is an insane thing for a 12 year old to be able to do. hell, that would be an insane thing for a grown adult to do. i don’t think rick realizes how op percy is. he was so caught up in making percy cool (which is, you know, extremely understandable and right and correct percy jackson is the coolest man in fiction for a reason i get it) that he forgot that he made percy extremely unbelievably powerful too. with the curse of achilles he was potentially matching minor gods in power level. he fights while sustaining mini-hurricanes and explodes glaciers and shit.
some more things. the prose is… acceptable. the plot reads like a fever dream. there is a smoothie shop called himbo juice that annabeth percy and grover are evidently regulars at. and there are. himbos. that serve. juice. so you can imagine what this fever dream looks like. like the last couple rick riordan releases, this one reads like published fanfiction too, just with better quality of writing than the sun and the star.
there are some WEIRD continuity errors in here. one of them is fairly minor but i still noticed it - percy says his father compared his mother to a princess. this is not true. poseidon compared sally to a queen. specifically, he called her “a queen among women”. i know this because i am sally jackson’s number 1 fan.
more egregiously, however, is annabeth’s yankees cap heebie jeebies. percy puts on annabeths’s cap and gets the heebie jeebies while using it. and then he goes wow annabeth. you never told me that using the cap is like this. and annabeth is like yeah well. power is like that. richard. riordan. did you fucking FORGET that percy has, in fact, worn annabeth’s cap before. and it was literally completely. once again, richard, did you read your own books.
one more good thing - when percy fights geras/gary, who is the god/personification of old age, the way he does it is by imagining him and his friends getting older and embracing it. this was a genuinely good and sweet moment and it was very touching. the trio’s talks about this after the fact are also absolutely a return to form from riordan. for like, a few paragraphs. but still.
the biggest problem is just how obvious it is that this book is a cash grab. we had pjo. then we had a sequel series. then we had ANOTHER sequel series. and now we’re getting random standalone novels that are extremely unnecessary and don’t add anything. rick riordan has dollar signs in his eyes. these are not stories that make sense. these are not stories rick genuinely wanted to tell. these are stories that are being told because the purpose of publishing books now is to maximize profit. (sidebar - i told you the capitalism thing would be relevant. you should believe me more often. smh) the only reason rick is still writing these books is that they make money. they feel extremely empty and hollow.
can someone PLEASE lock rick riordan in prison so he will leave percy jackson the fuck alone. LEAVE HIM ALONE. STOP WRITING MORE PERCY JACKSON BOOKS. STOP IT.
i am literally begging you to stop richard. PLEASE stop. PLEASE. just leave percy alone. he's been through enough. i thought trials of apollo was milking the franchise but oh my GOD he literally started writing "milking the franchise" novels.
no i have not read chalice of the gods. no i do not think it will be good. yes i am going to read chalice of the gods. i will not purchase it because i am not going to enable richard riordan's addiction to writing unnecessary novels in the pjo universe. but i need to know what the fuck is going on ok i am not immune to nostalgia but i am also really angry and if there is even one thing in percy annabeth or grovers characterization that is slightly off i am going to start biting someone. i do not trust this man with percy after blood of olympus or trials of apollo or god forbid the nico book. rick doesn't understand percy and i'm right about everything.
i'm also starting to feel like the pjo series was a give a monkey a typewriter situation. we shall see.
after reading:
ok. i promised i would hate this book. and i do. i hate this book. i also hate rick riordan. in addition, i hate capitalism. i promise that’s relevant.
let’s talk about the book now. i’ll cover the things i love first. i love percy jackson. i love grover. i love annabeth. i love sally. i love paul. i love percy annabeth and grover together. all of these things are very obvious and self-explanatory. percy is hands down THE main character of all time. i have nothing bad to say about him. his literal fatal flaw is loyalty. he’s actually perfect and has no flaws. this is expected from the son of sally jackson, the perfect person. paul is sweet and kind to sally and that’s really all that matters. annabeth is awesome and supportive and so is grover and they’re all besties forever. you get it. you’ve read percy jackson.
the jokes are better than before. there are definitely some legitimately funny jokes in this book, which i was really missing from the last few rick riordan installments. and i don’t think this is because rick suddenly got funnier. i think it’s because this style of joke works for percy. of all of rick’s protagonists, percy seems the most natural fit for these jokes.
sally is great. grover and annabeth are generally on form. so is percy, as much as can be expected from rick riordan at this point. i will elaborate on this later.
now to complain. this is the stupidest premise i’ve ever heard of. percy is a high school senior. he is going to go to new rome university. he needs 3 divine recommendations. this is already a stupid premise but don’t worry, it gets worse. poseidon reveals that the reason percy needs these recommendations is that it’s a special requirement for him specifically made by zeus. and the reason he gets to have this stupid requirement is that he’s a child of the big three and shouldn’t exist.
hello. zeus. yes, lord zeus, it’s me. alexis.
what the absolute FUCK are you saying.
this doesn’t MAKE SENSE. the only reason percy shouldn’t have existed was that the gods had a stupid pact to not have any kids because of a stupid prophecy. two things here. one - that prophecy is OVER. everything turned out fine. thanks to percy jackson. you’re welcome, gods of olympus. two - percy has literally saved olympus TWICE now. two times. this is genuinely such a dumb and made up reason to send percy on a quest that i can’t even turn my brain off and enjoy it. it’s not fun. leave percy alone. LEAVE HIM ALONE.
it’s literally insane how stupid this setup is. rick keeps writing books about how the gods are horrible and take advantage of the demigods and the demigods live terrible lives. in this book, percy has LITERALLY saved olympus TWICE and motherfucking zeus (literally) had to be talked down from making him get 25 letters of recommendation to 3. this is AFTER percy spent 3 years in pjo almost being killed and got his memory wiped for 6-8 months depending on which book you read in hoo and then got sent on a quest to save the entire world AGAIN. this CHILD got like a 2-4 month break (depending on which book you’re reading) and he woke up with no fucking memory and had to spend like 2 more months fighting monsters and the literal primordial earth goddess. and now he has to go on literally pointless quests that someone who didn’t just get back home from saving the actual world could ALSO just do. because he needs to get some fucking letters of recommendation.
look. genuinely. percy jackson should snap at this point in the story. this boy should’ve snapped like at least 5 books ago. at minimum. rick wrote the perfect setup to show us percy’s instant descent into madness. he should LOSE it. all the gods have done for the ENTIRE time he’s known he’s a demigod is treat demigods like disposable tools. this is the point in the story where percy goes. wow. luke was right. you guys are all assholes who don’t care about us even a little bit. i am NOT saying what needs to follow is a fanfic-esque dark!percy story where he successfully destroys olympus or something. what i AM saying. is at bare minimum this is where percy goes you know what fuck you i hate you guys and washes his hands of being a demigod at least temporarily. at the very least he should sit back and think yeah, i don’t really want to go to new rome university. it’s not worth it. i will just go to a different university. look. it’s percy jackson. he can literally one shot all but the most fearsome monsters (typhon, the giants, a drakon, etc). he is literally going to be 100% completely fine going to mortal university AND he wont have to deal with zeus’s annoying ass.
listen. MY percy jackson wanted to kill smelly gabe as a 12 year old because he abused his mother. MY percy jackson doesn’t like bullies. MY percy jackson challenged ares to a fight just on the basis that ares was a fucking asshole.
MY percy jackson is not going on useless fucking quests to go to new rome university of all places.
which reminds me. why DOES he want to go to new rome university. this is percy jackson. he LOVES new york. why is percy “what did they do to my city” jackson going to university ACROSS THE COUNTRY from the city he loves. why is he doing that. and hey look. sally and paul (and soon estelle) are ALSO going to be in new york. so like WHY is he leaving for real. percy my fatal flaw is loyalty jackson. IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE OK! it’s percy he is seriously not going to have issues with common monsters attacking him. we literally saw him fight off titans and giants a fucking hellhound isn’t gonna get his ass. WHY is he leaving. it does NOT make sense.
there’s this scene ok. where sally tells them she’s pregnant. and percy’s like oh my god…. i’m going to be in california…. and my sister is going to be here…. and i was just sitting there going. yeah bro. why are you going to california. i literally do not understand. you literally are from nyc. you live here. your family is here. your friends from chb are like a short pegasus ride away. there are like 50 universities in new york. just go here. why are you leaving. you are percy jackson. being a new yorker is literally one of your defining traits. stay here. WHY AR EYOU LEAVING I DO NOT UNDERSTAND PERSEUS
and listen. if your argument is that annabeth is going to be in nru. why the FUCK is ANNABETH going to nru!!!!! WHY WOULD SHE DO THAT!!!! EXPLAIN IT!!!! percy LITERALLY says annabeth is such an overachiever she’s already run out of ap classes to take. he literally says that. why the fuck is this girl going to nru where let’s be real her admission is guaranteed. annabeth is 100% someone who would want to go to an ivy. and would you fucking believe it there’s an ivy right here in nyc. like let’s be fucking realistic here. annabeth started her architecture career at SIXTEEN designing the city the fucking GODS live in. so like. don’t you think she’d want to be a bit more challenged. don’t you think she’d want to go to a university that is actually recognizable to mortals. annabeth did NOT love new rome that much like did richard forget what he wrote. this girl was freaking out about new rome until percy said he only likes it because they could live together there. she literally does not care about new rome and she is WAY too ambitious and academically inclined to be happy with going to some small as uni 99% of employers have never heard of.
this isn’t even the worst character assassination in the book. that award goes to the way rick wrote percy. percy. my darling percy. my beloved percy. perseus jackson. light of my life. as i said before, he is MOSTLY on form. the him really wanting to cali thing is definitely ooc for him but it is NOTHING compared to the sheer amount of times rick portrays percy as stupid in this accursed novel. his internal monologue is constantly shit like i’m always so behind annabeth and omg i’m being so dumb right now and annabeth calls me seaweed brain because i’m an idiot and blah blah fucking blah.
dick riordan has forgotten that perseus jackson is, in fact, not stupid at all. he is INCREDIBLY clever. he is just not particularly academically inclined/not very book smart and it would also be perfectly understandable given the fucking books that riordan wrote to interpret that as percy being very discouraged from engaging with his studies. he genuinely enjoys chiron’s class at yancy because chiron is an engaging teacher and encourages him. he spends 90% of his time in pjo deducing what’s going on with extremely limited information because rick decided none of the characters can tell him anything because of plot and exposition reasons. in son of neptune he literally just coasts on having sherlockian (not bbc that’s a whole other angry review) powers of deduction. to the point where the characters around him are amazed at how he’s figuring stuff out. literally in house of hades annabeth’s pov’s are constantly her commenting on how she gives percy shit for being a dumbass but he’s actually really clever.
it genuinely feels like at some point during the writing of mark of athena rick decided to just slowly start making various fanon ideas canon. percy being stupid is very commonly accepted fanon because he doesn’t realize how smart he is (and fans don’t realize he’s an unreliable narrator) and the fans also love to infantilize characters with more in your face adhd (leo is another victim of this phenomenon). we’ve spent 5 books in percy’s head and he doesn’t think he’s particularly clever so it makes sense to ignore the mountains of evidence pointing towards his quick and creative thought process in favour of haha percy is dumb jokes.
the wild thing is, percy isn’t even that hard on himself in pjo. he obviously doesn’t see himself in the same way we later come to find out other people see him (mainly thinking about hazel and frank in son of neptune, which is the only time in hoo he genuinely feels like the same character as pjo percy) but he’s not really dealing with crazy self doubt and self esteem issues. he does have his down on himself moments but they’re all extremely understandable given the context because he literally faces impossible odds in every single pjo book. at one point he’s disappointed he couldn’t tell that ares and luke manipulated him… like yes bestie that’s a very valid thing to feel upset and betrayed about. it doesn’t mean that he’s actually stupid though and genuinely he comes across more as humble and not realizing just how awesome and cool and interesting he is than anything else. percy consistently shows that he is really clever. half of pjo is percy figuring out a new and interesting way of defeating his enemies and the other half is percy figuring out how to bait his enemies into a duel to improve his odds. it’s horrible what rick does to percy in his internal monologue.
it’s to an insane degree. yes i realize i have already written 500 words about percy not being stupid alone but i must stress how egregious this is. it’s literally characters who have previously acknowledged percy’s intelligence who start remarking about how he’s stupid. in house of hades percy and annabeth get out of fucking TARTARUS and reyna makes a jab about how percy wouldn’t be able to find his way out of a paper bag without annabeth. that is an INSANE thing to say for reyna and for rick. rick has not written a stupid character so it’s weird to make that something a character does without really trying to show them being wrong. from reyna’s perspective, this is a guy she was complimenting a few short weeks ago. this is a guy she immediately wanted to make a leader at the camp that she loves and is her home. this is guy she barely knows and she pretty much immediately proposes to him. WHY would she suddenly start making jokes about how dumb he is? it’s not like she actually knows him better now. he came to the battle with reinforcements and basically immediately dipped after the feast. how are we to accept reyna treating our beloved perseus in this horrific manner? we simply cannot. it is unnacceptable. this is inaccurate.
it’s so WRONG to do this to percy. yES I UNDERSTAND I HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT THIS FOR TOO LONG. I DON’T CARE. PERCY JACKSON IS MY BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE AND I NEED TO DEFEND HIM FROM THIS SLANDER. I AM ONLY PARTIALLY JOKING. listen. liSTEN. this is the guy whose signature move is manipulate your enemy into dueling with you when you’re outnumbered or outmatched. he very coolly manipulated bob into killing his own brother (btw this was very hot and sexy and clever and attractive perseus is king of gaslight gatekeep girlboss). he is NOT stupid. he is impulsive. he is extremely oblivious about some things. he is NOT stupid. i watched perseus jackson grow up for 5 books and he is not stupid. i always say this. i always say that percy is not stupid and richard riordan refuses to listen to me.
there are such horrendous lines as “i am a guy of limited talents. if i can’t kill it with water, a sword, or sarcasm, i’m basically defenseless.” richard how DARE you say this about my beloved perseus. he is NEVER like this. he literally would never say that. even at absolute worst percy’s internal monologue was “this plan is stupid and will get us killed. but it’s the plan i have.” he’s NOT a being defenseless guy. what hte fuck are you saying. richard did you read your own books. RICHARD. DID YOU. at one point he says that he is constantly several steps behind annabeth’s thought process. he has literally never thought this before and it is also untrue. richard. i hate you. read your own fucking books oh my god.
ok. i think i have sufficiently harped on the fact that percy is not stupid. now i will complain about another thing. and this was just in one part but it bothered me and this is my review so i get to talk about whatever i want. if you don’t like it read someone else’s review. don’t hate read my review. i didn't charge you money to read it
at one point, percy has to wrestle a god who hercules once wrestled. and annabeth says something about hercules brute forcing it. and look. i GET that hercules was freakishly strong. i get that. i understand it. but when annabeth says hercules just brute forced it they’re both like ah shit i can’t do that. perseus. beloved. you ripped the minotaurs horn off its head with your bare hands as a 12 year old with no training. you are literally insanely strong as is. that is an insane thing for a 12 year old to be able to do. hell, that would be an insane thing for a grown adult to do. i don’t think rick realizes how op percy is. he was so caught up in making percy cool (which is, you know, extremely understandable and right and correct percy jackson is the coolest man in fiction for a reason i get it) that he forgot that he made percy extremely unbelievably powerful too. with the curse of achilles he was potentially matching minor gods in power level. he fights while sustaining mini-hurricanes and explodes glaciers and shit.
some more things. the prose is… acceptable. the plot reads like a fever dream. there is a smoothie shop called himbo juice that annabeth percy and grover are evidently regulars at. and there are. himbos. that serve. juice. so you can imagine what this fever dream looks like. like the last couple rick riordan releases, this one reads like published fanfiction too, just with better quality of writing than the sun and the star.
there are some WEIRD continuity errors in here. one of them is fairly minor but i still noticed it - percy says his father compared his mother to a princess. this is not true. poseidon compared sally to a queen. specifically, he called her “a queen among women”. i know this because i am sally jackson’s number 1 fan.
more egregiously, however, is annabeth’s yankees cap heebie jeebies. percy puts on annabeths’s cap and gets the heebie jeebies while using it. and then he goes wow annabeth. you never told me that using the cap is like this. and annabeth is like yeah well. power is like that. richard. riordan. did you fucking FORGET that percy has, in fact, worn annabeth’s cap before. and it was literally completely. once again, richard, did you read your own books.
one more good thing - when percy fights geras/gary, who is the god/personification of old age, the way he does it is by imagining him and his friends getting older and embracing it. this was a genuinely good and sweet moment and it was very touching. the trio’s talks about this after the fact are also absolutely a return to form from riordan. for like, a few paragraphs. but still.
the biggest problem is just how obvious it is that this book is a cash grab. we had pjo. then we had a sequel series. then we had ANOTHER sequel series. and now we’re getting random standalone novels that are extremely unnecessary and don’t add anything. rick riordan has dollar signs in his eyes. these are not stories that make sense. these are not stories rick genuinely wanted to tell. these are stories that are being told because the purpose of publishing books now is to maximize profit. (sidebar - i told you the capitalism thing would be relevant. you should believe me more often. smh) the only reason rick is still writing these books is that they make money. they feel extremely empty and hollow.
April 24, 2025
Reading this made me so nostalgic. I have missed Percy soooo much.
Full RTC.
A new Percy Jackson book with the original trio? I need this. New Percy content is always welcome.
Edit- The cover and synopsis are here. This looks amazing.
IT'S FINALLY HERE! I missed Percy way too much.
Is Goodreads glitching again? Cause I remember having over 50 likes on it. Now it's 10.
Lmaoooo
Full RTC.
A new Percy Jackson book with the original trio? I need this. New Percy content is always welcome.
Edit- The cover and synopsis are here. This looks amazing.
IT'S FINALLY HERE! I missed Percy way too much.
Is Goodreads glitching again? Cause I remember having over 50 likes on it. Now it's 10.
Lmaoooo
March 27, 2024
actual rating: 4.5 stars
October 15, 2023
all of the stars in the world. percy and annabeth have the greatest love story of all time and you will never convince me otherwise
OMG CAN U HEAR ME SCREAMING. A NEW PERCY BOOK. MY CHILDHOOD SELF IS CRYING
OMG CAN U HEAR ME SCREAMING. A NEW PERCY BOOK. MY CHILDHOOD SELF IS CRYING
September 29, 2023
just got my bestest friends back what a time to be alive. percyannabethgrover FOREVER!
October 4, 2023
4.5 stars. Both a glorious, riotously funny return to the world myself and so many others love and an interesting examination of nostalgia and how this series has aged with its readers, The Chalice of the Gods simultaneously left my heart full and made me for excited for more adventures to come.
November 28, 2024
"Look, I didn't want to be a high school senior."
Well. This completed my bookish heart.
Though technically a part of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, The Chalice of the Gods takes place after the events of The Heroes of Olympus but before The Trials of Apollo. Percy is starting his senior year at Alternative High School, scrambling to catch up on his credits after he went missing for the majority of his junior year (thanks to a certain goddess who shall not be named). But things are never easy for our favorite demigod, and he soon receives the news that in order to apply for college at New Rome University, he must obtain three letters of recommendation from the gods.
Every page of this was utterly delectable. Easily one of my most anticipated releases of the year, The Chalice of the Gods reinstated everything I adore about this series. From the first page I was immediately taken back to Percy's recognizable sass and the world of the demigods. I could read a handbook of Terms & Conditions for computer appliances written from the perspective of Percy Jackson and probably adore it just as much as the rest of the books. The son of Poseidon will forever be one of my all-time favorite characters.
One of the things that made me fall in love with these books the first time I read them was their humor. I daresay, this book may have been the funniest one yet. I had the best time reading this. I was snorting or laughing out loud on every page, and at other moments I was grinning harder than the Grinch after Christmas. At first I was writing down all the funniest snippets, but I soon resorted to taking pictures of the complete pages because things kept getting better and better. I mean, only Percy Jackson could say something like this:
"A soap maker offered cruelty-free soap, because nothing is worse than showering with cruel soap."
And can we talk about Annabeth trolling Percy into skipping while shooting rainbows? Because I was laughing so hard I cried.
It goes without saying that another of the best parts of this book was the blessed surfeit of Percabeth moments we got. Uncle Rick knows exactly what we want and he was prepared to give it to us. A majority of Percy's inner monologue is him thinking about Annabeth and wondering how he got so lucky to have her in the first place. His thoughts about her are the cutest thing and I was eating it up.
"If I had to choose between being with Annabeth and...well, anything, that was no choice at all."
Let's not forget that the reason Percy wants to get into New Rome University is because he loves Annabeth and wants to go to college with her. This man is willing to be trolled by the gods over and over just to be with her. (No wonder middle school me made such high standards.) This part had me actually screaming:
"Sometimes I wondered if Annabeth was open to the idea of marrying me someday only because she was excited about getting Sally Jackson-Blofis as her mother-in-law. Honestly, I couldn't blame her."
Speaking of Sally Jackson, it was so refreshing to see the side of Percy that lives at home and hangs out with his mom. I mean, following him during summers at Camp Half-Blood where he nearly dies on the daily is amazing, but being able to witness the "off-duty" demigod duties, as it were, was incredibly satisfying. I hadn't realized it, but the scene with Percy and Sally on the fire escape was something I needed so badly from them. I was desperately craving to see the mother/son dynamic between them and glimpse more of their relationship bonding.
This may just be my favorite Percy Jackson book yet. I had thought Percy was going to accomplish all three quests in this one book, but Uncle Rick has already released the title of the next book, called The Wrath of the Triple Goddess, so you know what that means. Yes. I will sit here in anticipation until it releases. If it's got Percy, I will read it.
While this book wasn't entirely necessary to further the series, it was entirely necessary for my Percy Jackson-loving heart. It has written itself onto my bookish soul and I doubt I will forget it for quite some time.
🗡️ 10/5 monster-slaying stars 🗡️
October 2, 2023
i died dead and i couldnt breathe anymore so i died dead rip me rest in peace me hashtag
March 12, 2024
This was very disappointing. The book read like someone trying to emulate a Percy Jackson book and doing a bad job at it. It just felt like it was trying too hard. And don’t even get me started on the slang.
Maybe it’s just me but I felt literally nothing for the characters. It was fun being back in the world but the magic was just not there.
Maybe it’s just me but I felt literally nothing for the characters. It was fun being back in the world but the magic was just not there.
January 2, 2024
i just need a book about them in college like please even if it’s a novella
December 17, 2023
”i imagined annabeth with silver hair and wrinkles, chuckling as she called me seaweed brain for the four millionth time in our lives.”
STOP 🥹 IT 🥹 MY 🥹 HEART 🥹 IS 🥹 SO 🥹 FULL
the way this was so modernized had me cacking its so unserious 😭 anyways the romance was saur cute i melted a million times
April 27, 2024
infinity stars
₊⊹⁀➴ I can’t express how happy this book made me. I’m in a similar stage of life as Percy and Annabeth, and reading this was so comforting 😭. Merging into adulthood can be so stressful, so I’m thankful for books like The Chalice of the Gods that I can really relate too.
₊⊹⁀➴ This book was literally perfect. All the Percabeth moments?? I was on the floor. Cuteness overload. Percy was so funny in this one too. I feel like this book had more Per-sassy then the rest of the series combined. *sigh* I just love Rick Riordan’s world so much. Of course, I’m sad that my time with this series is over for now, but I’ll be eagerly awaiting the next book!!
~Ella
quotes:
“I am a guy of limited talents. If I can't kill it with water, a sword, or sarcasm, I am basically defenseless.”
“I imagined Annabeth with silver hair and wrinkles, chuckling as she called me Seaweed Brain for the four millionth time in our lives.”
“I believed everyone should have the right to ruin their own life without anyone else ruining it for them.”
“I have a message for Annabeth Chase,” I said. “I love you.”
₊⊹⁀➴ I can’t express how happy this book made me. I’m in a similar stage of life as Percy and Annabeth, and reading this was so comforting 😭. Merging into adulthood can be so stressful, so I’m thankful for books like The Chalice of the Gods that I can really relate too.
₊⊹⁀➴ This book was literally perfect. All the Percabeth moments?? I was on the floor. Cuteness overload. Percy was so funny in this one too. I feel like this book had more Per-sassy then the rest of the series combined. *sigh* I just love Rick Riordan’s world so much. Of course, I’m sad that my time with this series is over for now, but I’ll be eagerly awaiting the next book!!
~Ella
quotes:
“I am a guy of limited talents. If I can't kill it with water, a sword, or sarcasm, I am basically defenseless.”
“I imagined Annabeth with silver hair and wrinkles, chuckling as she called me Seaweed Brain for the four millionth time in our lives.”
“I believed everyone should have the right to ruin their own life without anyone else ruining it for them.”
“I have a message for Annabeth Chase,” I said. “I love you.”
July 2, 2025
🐋🐚☾⋆⁺₊ PRE-READ ♡ | Back to the PJO series since I've been reading only disappointing books lately...
November 16, 2023
okay so omg the book was so good. percy jackson was literally my childhood so reading this felt like a hug. it felt so good to read this series again. i have to say it wasnt as good as the rest of the series but thats probably just because i’ve read soo many more books compared to little kid me. but other than that it felt so good to read rick riordans writing style and percabeth again. if you’ve read the pjo series, you NEED to read this.
October 5, 2023
alternative title: percy jackson and never catching a break
April 13, 2024
･:*:･ﾟ⁀➷ 4/5 ★
This was such a fun way to return to this world! 🤭🤭 Nothing as crazy as the original series, but it was just super cute & wholesome 🥹💝
“Find someone who loves you the way my girlfriend pushes me off a cliff. Without hesitation.”
Tropes:
⚡ Middle grade fantasy
⚡ Greek mythology
⚡ Quests
⚡ Friends to lovers romance
I was so excited when this book was announced bc i really did not think we were going to get anymore books following Percy, Annabeth and Grover only- but i’m so glad we did! It felt so good to see all my fav characters again 🫶🫶
The best way I can describe this book is sitting down for a cup of tea with some old friends 🥹🫶 The plot isn’t anything crazy and it’s definitely not the start to another high stakes series in this world. But i honestly really loved how chill this book was in comparison to the others. Don’t get me wrong, they still have to go on missions and fight monsters, in a more laid back way 😚
Seeing all these characters again was amazing! I’m not that into the other series in this world (i’ve never actually completed heroes of olympus or started trials of apollo, i’m so sorry) but pjo will always hold a special place in my heart.
➵ Percy: my fav sarcastic demi-god 😚 I loved seeing him again and while it definitely feels like he’s matured from the original series with everything that’s happened, he’s just as snarky and hilarious as before 🫶🫶
➵ Annabeth: my fav character i love her sm!! 🤭💓 I honestly do not know what percy and grover would do without her & her brain.
➵ Grover: it was fun seeing him again too! I’ve never felt as connected to him as percy and annabeth, but i still really like him 🥰🥰
“I am a guy of limited talents. If I can't kill it with water, a sword, or sarcasm, I am basically defenseless.”
Honestly, my fav part of this book tho was the percabeth content ✨️ In the original series, they obviously only got together at the very end so we didn’t see a lot of them actually being a couple. But all the cute moments between them in this book made my heart so happy! I love them sm 🥹🥹🫂🫂
“It was like a job requirement for them: 1) become a god, 2) get a cool magic thing, 3) lose it, 4) ask a demigod to find it.”
“I imagined Annabeth with silver hair and wrinkles, chuckling as she called me Seaweed Brain for the four millionth time in our lives.”
Overall, this was a lot of fun 😚🫶 I would highly recommend if you’re looking for:
✔️ Fun return to this world
✔️ Great characters
✔️ Wholesome romance
✔️ Lots of greek mythology
I can’t wait for the next book to come out! 🪷
《 2024 Challenge: Book 47 of 115 》
･:*:･ﾟ･:*:･ﾟ･:*:･ﾟ･:*:･ﾟ･:*:･ﾟ･:*:･ﾟ･:*:･ﾟ
Omg this was sm fun! 🤭🤭 so cute & wholesome, and I loved getting more percabeth content 🥹💘
Rtc! ✨️
This was such a fun way to return to this world! 🤭🤭 Nothing as crazy as the original series, but it was just super cute & wholesome 🥹💝
“Find someone who loves you the way my girlfriend pushes me off a cliff. Without hesitation.”
Tropes:
⚡ Middle grade fantasy
⚡ Greek mythology
⚡ Quests
⚡ Friends to lovers romance
I was so excited when this book was announced bc i really did not think we were going to get anymore books following Percy, Annabeth and Grover only- but i’m so glad we did! It felt so good to see all my fav characters again 🫶🫶
The best way I can describe this book is sitting down for a cup of tea with some old friends 🥹🫶 The plot isn’t anything crazy and it’s definitely not the start to another high stakes series in this world. But i honestly really loved how chill this book was in comparison to the others. Don’t get me wrong, they still have to go on missions and fight monsters, in a more laid back way 😚
Seeing all these characters again was amazing! I’m not that into the other series in this world (i’ve never actually completed heroes of olympus or started trials of apollo, i’m so sorry) but pjo will always hold a special place in my heart.
➵ Percy: my fav sarcastic demi-god 😚 I loved seeing him again and while it definitely feels like he’s matured from the original series with everything that’s happened, he’s just as snarky and hilarious as before 🫶🫶
➵ Annabeth: my fav character i love her sm!! 🤭💓 I honestly do not know what percy and grover would do without her & her brain.
➵ Grover: it was fun seeing him again too! I’ve never felt as connected to him as percy and annabeth, but i still really like him 🥰🥰
“I am a guy of limited talents. If I can't kill it with water, a sword, or sarcasm, I am basically defenseless.”
Honestly, my fav part of this book tho was the percabeth content ✨️ In the original series, they obviously only got together at the very end so we didn’t see a lot of them actually being a couple. But all the cute moments between them in this book made my heart so happy! I love them sm 🥹🥹🫂🫂
“It was like a job requirement for them: 1) become a god, 2) get a cool magic thing, 3) lose it, 4) ask a demigod to find it.”
“I imagined Annabeth with silver hair and wrinkles, chuckling as she called me Seaweed Brain for the four millionth time in our lives.”
Overall, this was a lot of fun 😚🫶 I would highly recommend if you’re looking for:
✔️ Fun return to this world
✔️ Great characters
✔️ Wholesome romance
✔️ Lots of greek mythology
I can’t wait for the next book to come out! 🪷
《 2024 Challenge: Book 47 of 115 》
･:*:･ﾟ･:*:･ﾟ･:*:･ﾟ･:*:･ﾟ･:*:･ﾟ･:*:･ﾟ･:*:･ﾟ
Omg this was sm fun! 🤭🤭 so cute & wholesome, and I loved getting more percabeth content 🥹💘
Rtc! ✨️
October 10, 2023
5★
Find someone who loves you the way my girlfriend pushes me off a cliff.”
!!spoilers ahead!!
~
The original trio is back in this high stake—but thankfully not world-threatening—adventure. The gang has one goal, and it’s probably their most terrifying task yet: get Percy into college! You’d think that saving the world a thousand different times would land our boy into New Rome University but guess again. As a son of one of the big three, Percy has to get three letters of recommendation from various gods. And to do that, he has to go on a quest! Hence, the search for the chalice of the gods!
~
It’s been how many years since we got a book with our og trio?? This book was literally like a warm hug, it fr felt like going home 🥹. Chalice of the Gods is, above all else, a love letter to everyone who read the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series all those years ago. It literally felt the exact same—with all the same humor, sarcasm, and fun that made us all fall in love with these characters in the first place. The themes of nostalgia and aging really just hit me right in the gut, because wow, the first time I read Percy Jackson was in ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, and now I’m halfway through Uni🥹. Like this series is what got me into reading in the first place, and here I am after all this time, reading another pjo book (I’m gonna cry again). Anyway, while it may have been many years, Percy hasn’t changed a bit.
Percy’s mood for the entire book: "I’m sick and tired of the gods and their bs, all I want to do is love my girlfriend and get into college."
Like mans is TIRED OF IT. The constant jabs at the gods were HILARIOUS (but low-key they suck fr). And GODS, Percabeth!!! Literally missed them so much, it was so nice to see our Wise Girl and Seaweed Brain together again; they just love each other so much. AND GROVER!! He deserves all the world and more. His and Percy’s heartfelt conversations literally had me in tears. AND DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON SALLY—OUR GIRL IS SO HAPPY IT MAKES ME CRY.
Honestly, I just loved this book so much, it was literally such a comfort read. And apparently, two more are coming after this?? Like yes please I need more adventures, Rick!! Overall, it was just so good. If you haven’t read it, do so, you’ll love it! And this was the perfect way to tie fans over until the show's release in December. Gods, I just loved this book so much, it’s all I can think about rn.
☆
SCREAMIN CRYING THROWING UP
THE OG TRIO IS BACK, DEMIGODS
Find someone who loves you the way my girlfriend pushes me off a cliff.”
!!spoilers ahead!!
~
The original trio is back in this high stake—but thankfully not world-threatening—adventure. The gang has one goal, and it’s probably their most terrifying task yet: get Percy into college! You’d think that saving the world a thousand different times would land our boy into New Rome University but guess again. As a son of one of the big three, Percy has to get three letters of recommendation from various gods. And to do that, he has to go on a quest! Hence, the search for the chalice of the gods!
~
It’s been how many years since we got a book with our og trio?? This book was literally like a warm hug, it fr felt like going home 🥹. Chalice of the Gods is, above all else, a love letter to everyone who read the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series all those years ago. It literally felt the exact same—with all the same humor, sarcasm, and fun that made us all fall in love with these characters in the first place. The themes of nostalgia and aging really just hit me right in the gut, because wow, the first time I read Percy Jackson was in ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, and now I’m halfway through Uni🥹. Like this series is what got me into reading in the first place, and here I am after all this time, reading another pjo book (I’m gonna cry again). Anyway, while it may have been many years, Percy hasn’t changed a bit.
Percy’s mood for the entire book: "I’m sick and tired of the gods and their bs, all I want to do is love my girlfriend and get into college."
Like mans is TIRED OF IT. The constant jabs at the gods were HILARIOUS (but low-key they suck fr). And GODS, Percabeth!!! Literally missed them so much, it was so nice to see our Wise Girl and Seaweed Brain together again; they just love each other so much. AND GROVER!! He deserves all the world and more. His and Percy’s heartfelt conversations literally had me in tears. AND DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON SALLY—OUR GIRL IS SO HAPPY IT MAKES ME CRY.
Honestly, I just loved this book so much, it was literally such a comfort read. And apparently, two more are coming after this?? Like yes please I need more adventures, Rick!! Overall, it was just so good. If you haven’t read it, do so, you’ll love it! And this was the perfect way to tie fans over until the show's release in December. Gods, I just loved this book so much, it’s all I can think about rn.
☆
SCREAMIN CRYING THROWING UP
THE OG TRIO IS BACK, DEMIGODS
September 27, 2023
I think, to some extent, Rick Riordan is magic all on his own.
How did he make me feel like I was 12 again? How could I have left these characters 10 years ago and came back to them like no time passed at all?
This book encapsulated the feeling of what Percy Jackson is: the joy, the cuteness, the adventure, the humor, the fun, the fantastic writing, the amazing characters. Not even Heroes of Olympus or Trials of Apollo came close to this feeling.
Percy is always going to be a favorite character of mine. I will always enjoy his adventures. I appreciate him and his selflessness, his sureness about love, his loyalty to his friends.
No matter how much time passes, I will always return to these adventures with a new willingness to be 12 again.
How did he make me feel like I was 12 again? How could I have left these characters 10 years ago and came back to them like no time passed at all?
This book encapsulated the feeling of what Percy Jackson is: the joy, the cuteness, the adventure, the humor, the fun, the fantastic writing, the amazing characters. Not even Heroes of Olympus or Trials of Apollo came close to this feeling.
Percy is always going to be a favorite character of mine. I will always enjoy his adventures. I appreciate him and his selflessness, his sureness about love, his loyalty to his friends.
No matter how much time passes, I will always return to these adventures with a new willingness to be 12 again.
Want to read
April 27, 2023OMG THIS IS REAL
WE'RE GOING BACK TO THE OG PERCY JACKSON SERIES GUYS
WE EATING GOOD IN 2023 ლ(╹◡╹ლ)
WE'RE GOING BACK TO THE OG PERCY JACKSON SERIES GUYS
WE EATING GOOD IN 2023 ლ(╹◡╹ლ)
September 28, 2023
Tra i 10 e i 13 anni ho affrontato il peggior blocco di lettura della mia vita, non riuscivo a trovare dei libri che mi facessero sentire capita e speciale. Poi a 13 anni anni presi in mano Percy Jackson e gli dei dell’Olimpo: il ladro di fulmini.
Finalmente avevo trovato una saga da attendere e divorare, ogni anno aspettavo con ansia l'uscita dei nuovi capitoli della saga.
Dalla prima alla quinta superiore, il campo mezzosangue è stata la mia costante e il mio posto sicuro.
Ho letto anche libri successivi, ma non sono più riuscita a sentirmi vicina a quella narrazione in prima persona piena di battute di dubbio gusto (che io amo) e di riferimenti diretti al lettore. La sera in cui, piena di dubbi, ho iniziato "Il calice degli dei" mi sono sentita trascinare indietro di 14 anni, su quel traghetto diretto in Grecia dove avevo aperto la prima pagina del primo libro di Riordan.
Nonostante non sia un libro carico di colpi di scena e con una trama complessa, penso sia un regalo che l’autore ha voluto fare a noi ex preadolescenti cresciuti insieme a Percy. È un modo di chiudere la storia esattamente come la aperta, parlando a dei ragazzini confusi tramite la storia di un ragazzino confuso. Oggi Percy ha 30 e io ne ho quasi 27, se potessi parlargli gli direi semplicemente: ce l’abbiamo fatta.
Siamo riusciti a crescere in un mondo che non è fatto per noi i giovani, abbiamo sconfitto i nostri mostri e siamo felici, grazie per avermi percorso questo tratto di strada con me.
Finalmente avevo trovato una saga da attendere e divorare, ogni anno aspettavo con ansia l'uscita dei nuovi capitoli della saga.
Dalla prima alla quinta superiore, il campo mezzosangue è stata la mia costante e il mio posto sicuro.
Ho letto anche libri successivi, ma non sono più riuscita a sentirmi vicina a quella narrazione in prima persona piena di battute di dubbio gusto (che io amo) e di riferimenti diretti al lettore. La sera in cui, piena di dubbi, ho iniziato "Il calice degli dei" mi sono sentita trascinare indietro di 14 anni, su quel traghetto diretto in Grecia dove avevo aperto la prima pagina del primo libro di Riordan.
Nonostante non sia un libro carico di colpi di scena e con una trama complessa, penso sia un regalo che l’autore ha voluto fare a noi ex preadolescenti cresciuti insieme a Percy. È un modo di chiudere la storia esattamente come la aperta, parlando a dei ragazzini confusi tramite la storia di un ragazzino confuso. Oggi Percy ha 30 e io ne ho quasi 27, se potessi parlargli gli direi semplicemente: ce l’abbiamo fatta.
Siamo riusciti a crescere in un mondo che non è fatto per noi i giovani, abbiamo sconfitto i nostri mostri e siamo felici, grazie per avermi percorso questo tratto di strada con me.
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