I Just Read the New Percy Jackson Book, "Wrath of the Triple Goddesses" - and Wow.

To start with, I loved this book because it felt perfect for fall - with the theme of Halloween, especially. Considering it's about mid-October when reading this, it provided all the right vibes. I'm definitely going to be looking for more books to replace the gap that this book left that way.

But when I really get down to it... this book just wasn't that good. It almost felt ghost-written, absolutely not the same person who wrote all the rest of Riordan's books, and that hurts me to say. But I think that sentiment makes up all the fundamental issues I have with this book. Let's start with what was good: it was an interesting adventure. While it started off a little slow, I liked to see how it picked up and became more interesting in the end. Unfortunately, that's about it.

First of all, this book didn't feel like it emulated any of the characters at all. Percy turned into some sad and depressed person, which is the only part that makes sense, considering all the trauma he's been through. But this book took his goofiness and sarcasm and turned it into stupidity and the quality of being incapable of doing something or thinking something without Annabeth. I mean, he was completely codependent on her, which never happened in the original series. And maybe that's because the original series was darker, but really, this book took quite a dark turn at the end, so I don't see why that is.

The book also took all of Annabeth's personality, her vivacity, and made her plain old mean and annoying, I guess, and just too perfect to be real. She constantly seemed surprised when she called Percy smart, even though she should know damn well by now that he's smart, and has said it before. Second of all, her insecurities about not being a people person and her fatal flaw? I'm not sure why that was included in this book since it's not like we've never seen those and RESOLVED them in past books.

I think this novel tries to hard to mesh the personalities of the characters in the show with the characters in the book when they are, in fact, two entirely different entities. Which of course, messes up the dialogue and especially the humor (let's face it: this book wasn't funny).

Also, I don't exactly hold this against Riordan, but the timeline definitely lacks some continuity. I think someone pointed out that Percy actually missed his sophomore, not junior year (not sure how true that is), but there are definitely some issues which I won't delve in to. Overall, I have to give this book some points for nostalgia's sake, but I really think this is mainly publicity for the show, so I understand that.

But lastly, OKAY! Like, yes, I know this book is about the original trio, but it felt like such a missed opportunity to have a cameo of the other characters in Riordan's books. Logically, since this book likely takes place in Trials of Apollo timeline, I know that a lot of the characters are busy doing their own thing. But, come on, there could have at least been a Hzel and Nico cameo, and it would have been so in theme for the whole Halloween vibe. Fingers crossed for the last one.

Overall, I'm going to give this book three out of five stars, because, while it did lack some character development (which I think this the major turn-off for me), it was a pretty fun dose of nostalgia and definitely not the worst thing I've read.

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