Ah, Percy Jackson. That adventurous fellow. His adventures are (currently) done. Rick Riordan has called it the end of the first Camp Half-Blood series, so there will no doubt be more. Will they have Percy as the main character? I actually hope not. I like the idea of exploring some new campers and that kind of thing. Percy has had his arc completed. I liked it.
“The Last Olympian” was much better than “Battle for the Labyrinth.” Labyrinth seemed very trite, very “I’ve read this book before” compared to the past books. ”Olympian” had a lot of action and fun to it. Predictable in several ways, but also hard to guess the exact outcome. I spent much of the book expecting Annabeth to turn evil at the end, but I did guess Silena’s secret fairly early on. Of course, I am not the target demographic and I have become somewhat skilled at guessing how books will turn out. Harry Potter? Called it. The City of Ember? Swish. Books my age? Don’t read ‘em very often.
Because despite the predictability of some plot points and character actions, I have nice surprises thrown my way by the younger books. The creative process flows faster in them, amazing things that adults might think silly happen and end up seeming very cool.
Percy Jackson is an amazing series overall from the perspective of an educator. There’s lots of parallels to Greek myths and stories and it’s an entertaining way for kids to learn about ancient Greek mythology. Which is neat to me because I’m a bit of a myth-nerd.
The conflict is pretty action packed in Olympian. I didn’t find the “choice” Percy had to make all that difficult from an outside perspective, but it was fun to read. I especially enjoyed the inclusion of Hestia, Goddess of the Hearth who played an important, if underscored, role in the proceedings.
It was a good conclusion to a good series. I liked it.
