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3.5/5
Non-Fiction
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Rating: 4/5
Pages: 400 Pages
Started: 13 January 2024
Finished: 14 January 2024
Summary:
When Percy and Annabeth accidentally discover an entrance into Daedalus's mythological labyrinth, they, accompanied by Tyson and Grover with his hunt for the wild god Pan, embark upon a quest through the maze's disorienting pastiche to prevent Luke from stealing the ball of yarn that would allow him to lead Kronos's army straight into Camp Half-Blood.
Thoughts:
I always remembered this book as my favorite in the series, which I now think is interesting since it's far less neat in terms of its character development and plot arc. Instead, in this book more than the previous ones there is lots of hinting at places and events that are never actually present. Rachel's life, for example, and the quests and training of the previous year, are both mentioned without being narrated, which creates this feeling of imagination and expansive possibility that's very magical.
The continued focus on hamartia in the book is fascinating. It's Percy's trust for Ethan that ultimately wakes Kronos, and Bianca makes a comment about all children of Hades having a flaw related to holding grudges which suggests that hamartia are connected to godly parentage.
Though Percy's flaw does get the best of him in the book, he also takes care to avoid the characteristics of other heroes who were not aware of the people they were hurting. For example, his comparison to Heracles continues, and he choses to use his own seawater, rather than a nymph's stream, to clean out Geryon's stables--Percy actively tries to be better than the heroes before him.
Relationships and romance also play a far bigger role in this book than in the previous ones. The presence of Rachel Dare triggers a pretty extreme jealousy in Annabeth, which I haven't decided if I like or not. Her care for Percy and her loyalty (and suspicion of strangers) all make sense, but her unnecessary and illogical jealousy plays a bit too hard into the jealous-blonde-coed stereotype, even if I do appreciate that it makes her more flawed and complex and human. Percy's 'ignorance' is also fascinating; he never displays any signs of confusion or regret, and it's clear to the reader (who is only receiving his narration) that Annabeth and Rachel Dare are both interested in him. This makes it seem far more likely that he is aware of the dynamic, and simply unsure of what to do with it. After all, Percy may not be super emotionally intelligent but he is clever enough that his confusion can't be assumed.
Side note: someone mentions that "when Athena falls in love it's purely intellectual," which seems to suggest that Athena is aspec? Which is very cool.
This book didn't have quite as strong an impact on me as it did in years previous, but I still enjoyed re-reading it a lot despite the increased complexity and decreased smoothness of the plot arc, and the extra imagination-fodder was really lovely. I can't wait to finish out the series.