Percy Jackson: The Battle of the Labyrinth || A Book Review

Hoooooo boy!

This one... this one was a big one.

Anyway, this is the fourth book review to the Percy Jackson series written by Rick Riordan. You can read the first one, the second one, and the third one first.

All good? Alright. Percy, Grover, and Tyson led by Annabeth all go on a mission to find Daedelus, the old inventor, before Luke does. If Luke gets to him first, he might be able to get Ariadne's string, a sort of compass device, and navigate the tunnel to the camp, leading an invasion.

!!! SPOILERS AHEAD (not the ending, though!) !!!

So much happened in this book I'm convinced it could've been split in two. It was like plot, after plot, after plot. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed this emotional rollercoaster. Usually, books don't really affect me in terms of emotions, but this book got to me. 

Nico di Angelo

A little side note: something I realized about Percy is that he is such an unreliable source of information. He's always asking Chiron or Annabeth to explain things to him, and I'm just here waiting, reading the book, waiting for Percy to finally catch up so that we can start the adventure.

So let's begin with Nico di Angelo. Poor troubled Nico di Angelo. Percy constantly receives Iris Messages from him at night, except they aren't from Nico. He saw Nico talking to ghosts and planning to bring Bianca, his dead sister, back from the dead for another person's soul (not your typical 11-year-old). Later, he finds out Bianca send the Iris Messages because she wanted Percy to stop him. Percy, Annabeth, Grover, and Tyson find Nico in the maze. At first he's resistant and bratty, saying Percy let his sister die, and that he doesn't want their help.

Eventually, they escape the three-chested man, Geryon, with Percy shooting him from the side and hitting all three of his hearts (don't picture that). Nico refuses to come with them, and he stays with the herder, Eurytion.

I find it really sad how much Nico changed. He used to be a bubbly little kid, always excited and amazed. Now with Bianca's death, he became a dark, grim character, though he is still naive.

Something I want to mention is that Annabeth actually kisses Percy when they were trying to escape Hephaestus's forges. Percy doesn't have time to react, since he gets cornered by telekhines- half dogs half seals- and he blasts himself upwards in a spurt of water.

Annabeth glared at me like she was going to punch me. And then she did something that surprised me even more. She kissed me.

So let's move on to Calypso. Poor, little Calypso. Since Calypso supported her father, Atlas, in the war against the Titans, she was forced upon a prison. Now, this prison isn't so bad actually. You have a beautiful beach, nice, clear water, and invisible servants to tend to your every need. You're even immortal! Only problem is, she's completely and utterly alone.

Until Percy gets blasted there by The Fates.

Calypso

After he escapes a cavern by blasting himself with water up into the air, he emerges on an island. Calypso helps him get better and tends to his every need. Calypso softens towards Percy, and keeps trying to push him out each time she gets close. When Percy finally asks why, she explains her curse. She also explains that every once in a while, a hero emerges there, wounded, for her to heal, but they can never stay. And she always falls in love with them.

Calypso desperately asks Percy to stay, and as much as Percy would like to, he just can't. He has his friends at Camp-Half Blood who need him. Calypso sadly sends him away on a magic raft, after kissing his forehead as a blessing.

"They send me a person who can never stay," she whispered. "Who can never accept my offer of companionship for more than a little while. They send me a hero I can't help... just the sort of person I can't help falling in love with."

Then a little trace of her smile returned. "Plant a garden in Manhattan for me, will you?"

Now, if that doesn't shatter your heart into a million tiny pieces I don't know what will. I pitied Calypso, even though I knew if Percy stayed- first of all, I would be really angry- he wouldn't be able to save his friends.

Rachel Elizabeth Dare

The next thing that happened was the re-appearance of Rachel Elizabeth Dare. She was originally seen in the previous book at Hoover Dam, when Percy accidentally sliced her with his sword, Riptide. But since she was a mortal, it just went right threw her like a ghost. Unbelievably, Rachel can see through the Mist. Meaning she can see through the sheen that prohibits mortals from seeing monsters, and swords, and other frightening things.

When Percy returns from his little vacation, he realized that he needs Rachel to guide them through the maze to find Daedelus, since she's a mortal and she can see through the Mist. Annabeth is aggravated by that, and is bitter towards Rachel. Percy is oblivious as to why.

I nodded, looking at Rachel with respect. "You hit the Lord of the Titans in the eye with a blue plastic hairbrush."

Before we continue, I'd like to share some quotes that I liked in the book:

"Just relax." My mom didn't sound relaxed.

Now, as far as I knew, he was still sailing around on his demon-infested cruise ship while his chopped-up Lord Kronos re-formed, bit by bit, in a golden sarcophagus, biding his time until he had enough power to challenge the Olympian gods. In demigod-speak, we call this a "problem."

Annabeth's hand slipped into mine. Under different circumstances I would've been embarrassed, but here in the dark I was glad to know where she was. It was the only thing I was sure of.

"He [Percy] killed the water fountain last night," Tyson confided.

"Let's not talk about it being alive," Grover whimpered. "Please?"

Then Annabeth said what I was thinking: "Run." 

We didn't stick around to play knock, knock with her, though.

[...] had a fabulous breakfast of granola bars and juice boxes, [...]

"Quintus..." Geryon mused. "Short gray hair, muscular, swordsman?" "Yeah." "Never heard of him," Geryon said.

"[...] Do you really want me to explain the details of how I [Annabeth] was born?"

The sky thundered in the distance, so I figured the burgers smelled okay.

 The horses whinnied and made me a whole lot of promises that they would be good flesh-eating  horses from now on, but I didn't stick around to chat. 

It isn’t easy being a brilliant inventor," Hephaestus grumbled. "Always alone. Always misunderstood. Easy to turn bitter, make horrible mistakes. People are more difficult to work with than machines. And when you break a person, he can’t be fixed."  

Anyway, eventually they find the lost god Pan. To Grover's dismay, Pan is dying, and should have died a long time ago. Since nature is getting sparser and sparser, the God of the Wild is fading. He fades right there in front of them, and Grover is forced to go tell the Cloven of Elders that Pan is dead.

Pan

I found this really saddening, because it's true. The wild is fading in real life. Trees are being cut down, rivers turned into dams. I think the author, Rick Riordan, was actually trying to a convey a message of what's happening.

A little thing I do is I use Ecosia.org, which is a search engine just like Google, except for every 45 searches a person does, a tree is planted. I made Ecosia my default browser, and it's amazing how you can plant trees by looking up cat memes!


Anway, that's it for this book review. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope it encouraged you to read the book (which I highly recommend you do!) if you haven't already.

PS: Percy also gets an adorable hellhound named Mrs. O'Leary, so yeah, just wanted to add that. Okay, have a nice day!

Mrs. O'Leary