User blog comment:SayuriDarling/The Blood of Olympus Official Discussion/@comment-3146930-20141013211630

I finally finished the book and I have a few things to say about it (and by "a few things" I actually mean I have a lot to say...a lot). So lets get started with:

The Dark Review
So me being me, I kind of read the last page, then the last 4-5 chapters, then all the Reyna/Nico chapters, then all the other chapters. Sometimes I think I do have ADHD, holy cow. As a result, I may have some information in the wrong order here.

This collection of thoughts will contain major spoilers

Closure
So despite this being the last book, for me it didn't feel like the last book. There were certain plot points brought up in earlier books that feel like they were dropped in order to focus on the big battle at the end of the book. A good example is Pluto mentioning to Hazel how a descendant of Neptune would wash away her curse, but I don't think it was ever confirmed her curse was gone. The only thing I can think of is Frank somehow cured it, but it is never stated exactly and he is related to Poseidon. Not to mention the Amazons had a prophecy that when Arion found a rider, it would lead the Amazons into an age of prosperity. Come this book they almost got completely destroyed by Orion. It just feels like we are left with a lot of unanswered questions by the end. t

No real buildup

 * Jason-Jason apparently needs glasses now. I'm not really sure if this was a plot point beforehand or if Jason was having a hard time seeing before, but ok.
 * Nico/Will-Nothing against these two, but they only talk in Nico's last 6 chapters I think and by the end of the book they act like they have been dating for at least a month. Maybe Will is just being a really good friend but it still comes off as coming out of left field.
 * Defeating Gaea-They sort of spell out exactly how they are going to do this mid-book, meaning only a blind person wouldn't know the full extent of the plan.
 * Leo's Death-In the last few chapters, everyone talks about how Leo is dead so much that it becomes harder and harder to believe he will actually stay dead. Come the final chapter and he isn't.

No Percy, Frank, Hazel or Annabeth
I'm not just talking chapters on this one, but I can't really think of anything these four actually did besides provide the blood for Gaea to wake up and Hazel worked some Mist magic. At one point Percy was even in the water, but is pretty much taken out in a matter of sentences. Jason, Piper, and Leo also very quickly dismiss Percy as being the storm in "To storm or fire the world must fall" despite Percy making more storms in the series than Jason. Not to mention Percy has even used his hurricanes in the same way Jason used the winds to keep Gaea in the air. Jason for the most part controls winds and calls down lightning, but Percy is the one making hurricanes.

Annabeth herself is reduced to nothing when her and Piper end up facing a giant themselves. It was like Rick was trying to pump up Jason and Piper after how powerless they seemed in the previous books so it would be believable that they beat Gaea. We don't even get any kind of reunion with Percy and Poseidon, which I don't like as Poseidon's absents has sort of been this thing that appeared to be on purpose, but in the end didn't matter. Rick has shown in The House of Hades that he can juggle a lot of different narrations, so giving Percy or Annabeth just 4 chapters each or even together wouldn't have been out of the question.

Hazel and Frank are also pushed to the sidelines despite the nod here or there about Frank turning into an animal or Hazel riding on Arion or doing Mist magic. It would have been nice to see a bit more of them.

Percy's Promise
This somewhat ties in with the above. Percy at different points in the book mentions how after making his deal with the gods to respect the minor gods more, he himself didn't really check up on it. As a result, many minor gods are still overlooked and/or trapped which Percy feels bad about. Yet it is Jason that is going to try and fix this. I feel like it would have been a better idea to have Percy finish what he started and it just felt like a missed opportunity.

Roman/Greek God Equality
In truth, there is no equality as it all goes back to the Greek gods. After Reyna and Nico help bring peace between Roman and Greek demigods and the gods become complete again, they are all Greek during the final fight. The series tells us that the various aspects of the gods have different personalities depending on if they are in their Greek or Roman forms. So why is it when Jason, a Roman demigod, is fighting alongside the gods, he is fighting with Zeus and not Jupiter. Why is Frank fighting with Ares instead of Mars. It just felt like a let down.

Roman/Greek Demigods
This is like the opposite of how the gods are treated. The Roman Legion is treated as being vastly superior to the Greek demigods. The book makes it feel the despite these two camps supposedly being opposite but equal, the Romans could easily just destroy the camp whenever they feel like and only waited because Octavian is a perfectionist. Then in the final battle they look like idiots without a plan, except in previous books Camp Half-Blood is known to teach formations and tactical plans. Look at the battle of New York.

It is also kind of weird that when Reyna brings back the statue, she brings it as a peace offering to the Greeks despite the Romans being the ones wanting a fight. Almost three books about that statue and it really didn't do much in the end, which is sad.

Obviously Not All Bad
Despite all the negatives I listed above, this book wasn't all bad. In fact it is probably my second favorite of the series and I'm being hard on it because it is the last and as a result, I had high expectations that it did not reach in my opinion. The fights were good and some of my favorite parts of the book was the interaction between Reyna and Nico. If anything, I could just read those chapters and be happy. Nothing wrong with things on the Argo II side of things, but it pretty much became the Jason-Piper-Leo show as Percy, Annabeth, Hazel, and Frank were all pushed to the sidelines and weren't given much except the occasional nod here and there. The funny thing is I like all those characters more than Jason-Leo-Piper (I like Leo more than Frank, but I like Percy-Hazel-Frank~Annabeth over Jason-Piper-Leo).