PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS (BOOK THREE): THE TITAN'S CURSE review

(Reviewed by Tommy Stuart)
The third book in the Percy Jackson series, called The Titan's Curse is, like all the other books in the series, a book of the adventure genre based on Greek mythology, written by Rick Riordan. It was released in 2007 by Hyperion. It changes and adds things to Greek mythology. For instance, this book depends on its explanation of the clash of the Titans. There actually wasn't any full story on how the gods took the Titans down. It stated who sided with who, it revealed the sort of backstory to it, it gave the time it lasted for, and it said the result. The Percy Jackson story gives a LOT more info, and it was more specific on what happened to the Titans... besides just Atlus. Be wary when your Greek mythology teacher tries to bring up Percy Jackson for the backstory of how the gods came into power. It is not actually true of Greek mythology. Also, Athena was a virgin in actual Greek mythology. I like the series's imagining of Greek mythology, but it is not the truth. Now, I should get to the review of this specific book.

(WARNING: This review contains spoilers)


The first book in this series was the best, and the second was pretty good, too. The third book is probably the worst of the three books of the series I have read so far, but it is not just simply trash. It has the humor perhaps known of the Percy Jackson series. Typically it is just jokes told by the narrator, Percy Jackson, a demigod (AKA Half-Blood) whose father is Poseidon. For this book, there was a quite humorous part that was actually just a funny event in the story.

Some more backstory is required. There will be spoilers for previous stories. Another thing made up by this series is that Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon made an oath to never have children again. There was a prophecy that a child of one of the "Big Three" would betray the gods, and they would try to take over Olympus. Before the end of the second book, Percy Jackson was the only known capable child of Big Three. However, the end of the second book introduced another child of the Big Three into the story. Annoyingly, the character had only merely appeared at the end of the second book.

The third book starts off with Percy, Annabeth (child of Athena), and Thalia (child of Zeus who is suddenly settled into the group) on a mission to reveal to two new Half-Bloods the truth of who they are. Then we are introduced to Artemis for the first time in the series, who has immortal huntresses. One by the name of Zoe Nightshade becomes a major character in the book. Pretty much, crap goes down, the two Half-Bloods are saved, Annabeth is taken, and Artemis leaves to go fight some monster. Bianca, one of the two completely new characters, becomes a Huntress, thus pretty much concealing her potential as a Half-Blood. Her brother, Nico, cannot be a Huntress, so Bianca pretty much split her destiny away from Nico. Eventually the story becomes about saving Annabeth, finding the monster Artemis went after, AND saving Artemis, who got herself in trouble.

There is a prophecy about the quest stating that two of the characters will die. Long story short, the two who die are new characters. Zoe Nightshade had some history with other characters, and she seemed well developed by the end of the story. HOWEVER, what really grinds my gears is that the completely new characters were introduced early in the story just for both to barely matter. One dies, and the other didn't go on the quest. It seems like wasted potential. Plus, Nico and Thalia seemingly have their destinies slightly split away from being main protagonists. Thalia prevents herself from being the child destined to be a traitor by becoming a Huntress, so a lot of pressure is put on Percy. Threats were thrown. Promises were made. Even so, the end of the story pretty much makes all those threats and promises out to be meaningless to Percy, as Percy just suddenly decides he will be the prophecy child for a stupid reason. It's not even that he has come to not like the gods, but rather he just wants to protect someone else. It's bullcrap.

This book had a fairly meaningless death. The only way the death could matter to us is how it affects other characters in the story, and in my book, that's still a meaningless death. We, the readers, shouldn't care. We didn't gain any attachment to the character. Also, the death was unclear. At the end, when they seem to finally confirm that she is actually dead, I knew that meant the death was meaningless. Readers shouldn't be needing confirmation of a death if there is meaning to it. A meaningless death is, in my opinion, one of the greatest mistakes any storyteller could make. For the other character who straight-up died, we got to know that character. Honestly, I find it so strange that the author built up meaning for Zoe, but he also thought it'd be okay to introduce Bianca just to kill her off. I see no good reason as to why Bianca needed to be in the story.

The humor of this story is great, and I like learning about a more logical-sounding interpretation of Greek mythology, but the book is brought down by its complete waste of potential and bullcrap ending. The meaningless death certainly did the most tainting to the story. I give the third book of the Percy Jackson series a 5/10. That's probably with optimism.

Btw, the series has graphic novel versions of the books if you're a bigger fan of comics than regular books. However, I would only recommend this book to go with the others. There is a chance you could just skip this book in the series and the series would still make enough sense. If you plan to do that, literally just read this entire review. It will save you the trouble. For those that plan to do what I just said, I actually have to tell you that Nico is a son of Hades.

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