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Book Review: The Trials of Apollo: The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan

The Trials of Apollo: The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan

Disney-Hyperion, 2016

ISBN-13: 978-1484732748

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, Audible

 

The Hidden Oracle is the first book in a new series in the world of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Trials of Apollo. This book takes place six months after the war with Gaea and the giants’ army, at which time Apollo was cast out from Olympus by Zeus. Now Apollo finds himself living a mortal life as a sixteen year old boy, indentured to Meg, a cranky demigod with a bad temper, hidden past, and voracious appetite. Apollo has many lessons to learn. Always vain about his appearance, now he faces himself in the mirror as a homely teenager with acne. Used to changing the world to suit himself, he must now find a way to fit in to the world as it is, and learn the worth of others. Arrogant about his supernatural powers, it’s quite a comedown to him when things no longer come as easily.

The Hidden Oracle is told only from the point of view of Apollo, and it’s an unusual point of view to find in a children’s or YA book, because Apollo has had the experiences of an ageless adult, in an adult body, but with the temperament and selfishness of a teenager. While he’s stuck in the body of an actual teenage human, his view is complicated by this combination of life experience, temperament, and the unfamiliar physical limitations of being mortal. When he’s wounded, for instance, his son, Will, acts as his healer… but physically, Will is nearly the same age, and has more emotional maturity. Apollo is matter-of-fact about things that can often be hot buttons in children’s books, like his regrets about his love relationships with Daphne and Hyacinthus, and his description of Will’s and Nico’s relationship (their bantering is a high point in the book). As the book advances we see Apollo the god begin to mature and connect emotionally with others as he learns his limits and how far he can push himself. As with any self-absorbed teenager, he can be incredibly irritating, but it’s worth it to see his self-reflection and changing attitudes.

The plot follows the arrival of Apollo and Meg at Camp Half-Blood with a storyline about communications being cut off with the outside world, the camp’s oracle deserted, and campers wandering into the woods never to be seen again. Apollo and Meg accidentally get lost in the Labyrinth during a camp exercise and discover that the physical location of Oracle of Delphi has been taken over by the monster Python, working with a mysterious character named the Beast. The Beast is attempting to take over all the oracles and destroy them. Meg has had some frightening experiences with him in the past: he’s responsible for the death of her father, and she will do anything to avoid him.

On returning to camp, they find that two of Apollo’s children wander off into the woods. Apollo and Meg go after them, battling giant ants with both weapons and musical talent, and answering marketing surveys from geyser gods (one of the funniest parts of the book) They finally find the missing campers and, despite the destruction of the other oracles, are able to discover a prophecy that can send them on a quest.  A terrifying standoff with the Beast reveals Meg is much more vulnerable than she looks, and leaves a fracture in the relationship between Meg and Apollo… and there’s still a battle to be fought for Camp Half-Blood. It’s quite a lot to pack into 376 pages, and the story rockets along.

The Hidden Oracle is worth reading more than once– there is a lot of character development that takes place, and it’s easy to miss if you get caught up in the action. This really isn’t a book intended for the same age group that read the original Percy Jackson books, though, or even the Heroes of Olympus books, which are really targeted at teens and, while they are darker, have a much more YA soap-operaish feel. Because of its more adult themes on relationships, trauma, and abuse, and the frequently adult perspective of the narrator, The Hidden Oracle seems intended for more mature readers. I recommend reading the previous two series, though, particularly Heroes of Olympus, because that’s where the events of the story begin, as well as Nico’s and Will’s relationship, and there are references to characters and events from earlier books. If you are a fan of Riordan’s work going all the way back, this is a great addition to his Greek mythology series, and more complex than his other books. He is writing a series grounded in Norse mythology concurrently, and I much prefer this. I look forward to seeing where Riordan takes the story of Apollo from here. The second book in the series, The Dark Prophecy, will be released in May 2017, and will undoubtedly answer some of the questions raised in the first book while introducing new ones. Highly recommended for YA and “new adult” readers, for middle and high school libraries, and for Rick Riordan fans.

 


Posted on December 3, 2016 by , Reply

Book Review: Summer at East End: Double Eclipse by Melissa de la Cruz

Summer at East End: Double Eclipse by Melissa de la Cruz
G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, 2016
ISBN-13: 978-0399173561
Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition

Double Eclipse is the second book in Summer at East End,  a YA spinoff series of Melissa de la Cruz’s adult urban fantasy series Witches of East End, which was about three sisters who discover they are Norse goddesses with witchy powers. Summer at East End  takes place ten years later and focuses on their teenage nieces, twin daughters of Thor, Mardi and Molly, who are human/goddess hybrids. As background, Norse gods and goddesses live as humans, and when they die they are reincarnated in another human body without memories or powers; these manifest in their teen and young adult years in a process called Reawakening. Mardi and Molly are brand new goddesses in their first lifetime, so they’ve never had to go through this and won’t acquire “grown-up” memories like the other gods do, because they don’t have them.  The premise of this book is that the girls learn their mother is the famous tennis player Janet Steele, who moves to East End after purchasing their family home and throwing their relatives out of the house, on the pretense of developing a relationship with her daughters.

I wasn’t sent Triple Moon, the first book in the series, but Double Eclipse does a fairly good job of standing on its own (although I have read the original Witches of East End books, and without that background I might be lost, so for teens unfamiliar with the previously written adult series or the television show, it might be more important). Unfortunately, even given the background from the previous series (which I enjoyed) I found this book to be disappointing.

I think a large part of the problem is that it’s difficult to relate to the characters. The sweet twin/bad twin trope can work and even be kind of fun, which is what makes the Sweet Valley High books work. It can even work when the girls in question are ridiculously wealthy (like the sisters in Hotlanta) but on some level, the characters have got to be relatable, and have at least a semblance of a believable relationship with each other. Twin Molly is the sweet one interested in fashion, makeup, and boys. She’s also easily bought by Janet, instantly loving her and moving in without a second thought, especially after she’s offered expensive shopping trips and the use of a Maserati. Mardi is the cynical one, suspicious of Janet’s sudden interest, particularly since she’s evicted Mardi’s boyfriend (yes, there’s an ick factor there, in dating one of your relatives who just happens to be reincarnated into a seventeen year old boy’s body). Caught in the middle is cute boy Rocky McLaughlin, who is carried away by Molly’s sweetness (and her Maserati) and baffled when she stops texting him. Due to misunderstandings over said cute boy and a spell cast over everyone’s cell phones, disaster ensues.

Molly, as the “good twin” is supposed to by a sympathetic character, but she was totally insufferable and so superficial and self-centered she almost forgot that her boyfriend was grieving his mother. Mardi was slightly more likable, but her rebelliousness basically consisted of “I don’t wear makeup” and grudgingly working in a sandwich shop while hitting on her sister’s boyfriend, after she spent most of the book moping over her boyfriend breaking up with her when he realized the essential “ick” factor of his dating a teenager. Also, much of the plot hinged on a lack of communication between the two girls. While they weren’t in constant contact through texting, nobody ever suggested they meet face-to-face, although they actually lived on the same small island, interacting with the same people. It also seemed unrealistic that their only same-age peer was the boy they were fighting over. As a side note, these two girls were constantly being offered alcoholic drinks by their relatives, and sucking them down as if this were no big deal. Even in fiction, yes, it totally is. They aren’t in school anyway, so why not just make them 21?

Honestly, having read both her adult fiction and her children’s books, I expect better from de la Cruz. She had a great opportunity here to take advantage of a growing young adult interest in books with mythological settings, thanks to Rick Riordan’s expansion into the world of Norse mythology, the Loki’s Wolves series by K.L. Armstrong and M.A. Marr, and Kate O’Hearn’s Valkyrie, and I feel that she really squandered it by turning it into a series about two material girls who also happen to be goddesses, rather than digging deeper into the mythology and providing a little more action, character growth, and connection to the mythology, or even just exploring more of their family connections. I hope there’s more to the next book than there is to this one. However, with Melissa de la Cruz being as popular as she is, and with the interest in Witches of East End, it probably will be in demand.

Contains: mild sexual situations, violence

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski


Posted on November 4, 2016 by , Reply

Book Review: The Ferryman Institute by Colin Gigl

The Ferryman Institute  by Colin Gigl

Gallery Books, 2016

ISBN-13: 978-1501125324

Available: Pre-order, paperback and Kindle editions

 

Charlie Dawson is a Ferryman– an immortal whose job is to coax the spirits of the newly dead through a doorway into the “light”. Watching people dying on a daily basis would take a toll on anyone, and after 250 years of it, he is burned out and reckless. One day he receives an assignment to guide Alice Siegel, who is about to commit suicide. When he opens the envelope with his assignment inside and removes the instructions, he reads, “Be a Ferryman or save the girl”. In saving Alice, he breaks a cardinal rule of the Ferryman Institute by revealing himself as a Ferryman, which threatens the existence of the secretive organization. Upon Charlie’s return to the Institute, Inspector Javrouche of Internal Affairs, who bears a grudge against Charlie, uses his rule breaking as an opportunity to prosecute him. Charlie escapes to the scene of his last assignment– Alice’s bedroom– and takes an unwilling and irate Alice along with him on an outrageous adventure,  on the run from Javrouche and the Institute’s security forces.

I love the world-building in this book. Gigl does a great job of fully realizing a bureaucratic organization responsible for making sure that the spirits of the dead are guided to the light. Giving Charlie the choice to save the woman he is assigned to is a creative way to set up the story and reveal characters’ motivations. Employees of the Ferryman Institute are well-drawn, even the minor ones. The persistent and vengeful Inspector Javrouche and the mysterious Cartwright are especially interesting. The background to Javrouche’s character, and his enmity towards Charlie, help to build suspense and distrust that shape the story and keep the reader off-kilter and engaged in the action. I can easily see the Ferryman Institute as a setting for a new paranormal series, which could be especially interesting if the storyline continues to include Javrouche and Cartwright.

However, I feel like Gigl couldn’t quite decide what genre to write. The beginning of the book suggests that it will be urban fantasy or contemporary paranormal fiction, but the relationship between Charlie and Alice is central to the book, and somewhere after Charlie escapes Javrouche and kidnaps Alice, it veers into romance novel territory. What’s problematic about this is that both characters are incredibly self-involved and unsympathetic, so it’s hard for the reader to root for a successful romantic relationship. Additionally, the relationship feels very forced. In their first interaction, Alice shoots him in the head, and just a few pages before she first kisses him, she calls him self-centered, in a very uncomplimentary fashion. It’s just not believable that these two people could sustain a successful love affair when they can barely sustain themselves. Because a romance novel requires a happy ending, the resolution of Charlie’s dilemma also feels forced. Given two unsatisfactory but interesting choices as possibilities for a retired Ferryman, a third option conveniently becomes available that resolves all his conflicts and allows him to have a normal, romantic relationship with Alice, as a mortal, so they can have their happy ending. It ties up most of the loose ends, but it is an uncomfortable fit, and I don’t think most romance readers would be satisfied. The Ferryman Institute may appeal more to urban fantasy readers. While the relationship between Charlie and Alice isn’t compelling, there’s plenty of action, the secondary characters are great, and they will enjoy the unique world Gigl has created. While not essential to a collection in this genre, The Ferryman Institute is an interesting choice for voracious readers and libraries building large urban fantasy collections.

Contains: graphic descriptions of dismemberment and violent death, attempted suicide.


Posted on August 27, 2016 by , Reply
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