Title: The Titan’s Curse
Author: Rick Riordan
Series: Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Camp Half-Blood Chronicles
Publish Date: June 3, 2014 (originally published May 1, 2007)
Publisher: Disney Hyperion Books
Format: Paperback
Goodreads Summary:
When Percy Jackson receives an urgent distress call from his friend Grover, he immediately prepares for battle. He knows he’ll need his powerful demigod allies at his side; his trusty bronze sword, Riptide; and . . . a ride from his mom.
The demigods race to the rescue to find that Grover has made an important discovery: two new powerful half-bloods, whose parentage is unknown. But that’s not all that awaits them. The Titan lord, Kronos, has set up a devious trap, and the young heroes have just fallen prey.
Hilarious and action-packed, this third adventure in the series finds Percy faced with his most dangerous challenge yet—the chilling prophecy of the Titan’s curse.
Review: As Percy matures, so do his stories.
This installment doesn’t take place over the summer, but rather during winter break, only about six months after Sea of Monsters. Percy is now fourteen and starting to really understand this whole hero gig he’s involved in.
We also get to see just how dangerous the world really is, as the stakes rise higher with every passing quest. The Titans are getting more bold in their plans, and they cleverly use the half-bloods’ own fatal flaws against them.
One of the things I really enjoyed about this one is that we don’t really get all that much detail about two introduced characters, one of whom will go on to be a major character. [For context, I’m already midway through book 4, but this isn’t too much of a spoiler.] The reveal that something isn’t quite… right about Bianca and Nico di Angelo is carefully unfolded over the course of the novel, while leaving a lot for readers to discover in future installments.
While I did appreciate the introduction of Artemis’ Hunters, I kinda felt that they were just introduced to get Talia out of the way. We spent two novels hearing about her, and now she gets to take Annabeth’s spot as Percy’s right handed woman for this novel… only for the ending to happen. I totally understand why this decision was given, no spoilers obviously, but at the same time it felt like the author didn’t know what to do with two strong female characters.
One thing that stands out to me is that Percy isn’t just a perfect character. He makes mistakes, he screws up, he talks back to Gods when he needs to… And I enjoy that. I also like that the Gods and Goddesses feel more fleshed out in this novel (at least a bit more, anyway), as Percy ends up having several different interactions with them.
All in all, it’s still a great book that is setting up for what seems to be a satisfying conclusion, though there is a part of me that felt like this novel did suffer a bit from fatigue halfway through.
Rating: 4.5/5
Goodreads Goal 5/52
[Edit Update: This novel was originally read on March 27, 2022.]