User blog comment:SayuriDarling/The House of Hades Official Discussion/@comment-6365107-20131014233708

Hi. Long time lurker. First time poster.

I did like the book. It is my least favorite in the HoO series though. Tartarus was awesome, and I liked how every character (almost) had importance. The character development was great; even Coach Hedge got some development. I also thought it was cool how Nico was there the whole time. I thought he would leave for some reason because he's not "one of the 7" but he stayed until the end. I loved Leo and Calypso together and wished he stayed there because it was really interesting. Anyway, here are my dislikes:

The fights were ridiculous

Almost all of the fights were "outwitting" instead of brute strength and it got really old. The demigods basically talked their way out of every fight. The one with Nyx was the most ridiculous. I miss when they were just awesome and kicked immortal butt.

Hazel's "Mist" doesn't make sense

The Mist is used to hide things from mortals. Hazel uses it to transport her friends and make things appear to happen. It doesn't make any sense and RR did a poor job explaining it. During the fight with Pasiphae and that other guy on the cliff (can't remember his name), it was just so dumb and confusing.

Piper is a joke

I really liked Piper at first. I thought having a daughter of Aphrodite was interesting and would add a new twist to the plot. Now, I'm over her. She is useless at fights, and it ruins the tension. When Jason, Frank, and Hazel are slashing monsters to pieces and fighting with all they have, Piper shouts "Jump off the cliff". It ruins the moment and makes her look silly. Her major weapon is a Cornucopia, which is another thing that ruins fights, and she charmspoke to a machine. Plus, she's the only main character to just have 1 set of PoVs.

Nico being gay is random

I don't have a problem with Nico being gay but I feel like RR just threw that in there to make his books more "culturally diverse". In the original Percy Jackson series, almost all the main characters were white. Now, Leo is Hispanic, Piper is Native American, Hazel is black, Frank is Asian, Reyna is Hispanic, etc. I don't have a problem with that but throwing in that Nico is gay is just so obviously an afterthought to appease everyone.

Clytius versus Hecate

This is probably a minor gripe but the giants were created specifically to fight the Olympians and exploit their weaknesses. Why didn't Clytius go after Hecate at all? It didn't make much sense.

And some other minor things include not calling Gaea by her Roman name "Terra" (even the Romans call her Gaea), Hera not being in the book even though she is the one who started this whole thing, and too much lovey dovey stuff. Still, I did like the book and can't wait for BoO.