The Burning Maze discussion

Summary

In The Burning Maze, Apollo goes to Palm Springs in order to save California and the oracle from the emperor Caligula who is causing fires. He meets Piper and Jason who help him and in the end, Jason is killed by the emperor, but Apollo and his friends are able to go into the burning maze and stop beat him. (60)

Analysis

The character that I am going to focus on the most in this book review is Apollo. It might seem obvious that it would be the main character but there is so much interesting information about him.

Even though this is the third book in the series, while he has changed from when the ex god fell into a dumpster, he still has most of the same traits as before. At the very start of the book, like page one early, he sort of brags about how great he is (was), and talks about how he does not deserve this because he is better than everyone else. Something else that is strange about him is that he remembers all of the 3000 years that he has been alive making it a little unrelatable to everything that he is thinking.

It isn’t until the middle of the book that he finally starts realizing that his life isn’t the only one that matters, and sometimes he has to make sacrifices in order for others to be happy. One example of this is he tells grover to drop him into a burning pit of fire in order to save everyone., He would not have ever done something so selfless before this point but his journeys that he has had to go on have changed him for the better. The biggest turning point for him was when Jason Grace talked to him and told him to remember what it is like. Especially when Jason dies, you can see something happen to Apollo and you can tell that he is never going to be the same arrogant person ever again.

At the start he is very prideful even after all that he has already been through, but it isn’t near the end when they are in the burning maze that he is a completely different, caring person. It is probably already obvious but Apollo is a dynamic character in the book and goes through the most changes as anyone else. (335)

Review

I really enjoyed this book and thought it was super good in all. This was probably my favorite one in the series for a lot of reasons, but a big one is that they brought back more of the people from the previous books. Apollo started to get more likeable in this one making it easier to read and a lot more fun. I always love how Rick Riordan always puts humor in his books even during that parts that are full of action, making it not as dark as some books can get. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is into the greek mythology ( which is another reason why I like it) or just wants to read a funny book. (124)