The Son of Neptune

I read The Lost Hero so long ago it was before I started doing book reviews, so I’m a little shaky on just what happened in it. This is the second book in the series The Heroes of Olympus, the followup to the Percy Jackson books.

The Lost Hero was about a lost Roman demigod being found by Percy’s old friends at Camp Half-Blood – Percy himself had gone missing. Now we’re back with Percy, who has suddenly turned up at Camp Jupiter, where the Roman demigods live and train. He has two new misfit best friends and a brand new quest.

I really love these books. They have such a funny, irreverent style of writing, and the mythology and pop culture are woven together so skillfully. The mythology is much more complicated in this series than is was in the first because there are Roman stories to tell too, and I do love it when YA stories become more complex as the characters in them grow up.

I already loved Greek and Roman mythology, and I’m glad that these books are out there for the actual target market now. There are a great many important cultural references worked in there between the silly stuff (the Amazons work at Amazon) and the parables about friendship and trust, and I declare them to be solid books for any kid.

Now I need to get my hands on The Mark of Athena. Annabeth is probably not going to be in the best mood when we next see her.