A Review of 'The House of Hades'

While I'm itching to review one of the other books, I'm going to go in order of finished first, so today's (belated and somewhat short) review is of The House of Hades by Rick Riordan! Considering this is the fourth book in the series, beware spoilers of the previous books! It's kind of impossible for me to avoid them with how the author set up his cliffhanger at the end of the previous book.

Via Goodreads

Percy has jumped into Tartarus to save Annabeth (who fell in shortly before him), and Gaea has had her forces endlessly assaulting the crew of the Argo II. With time running short, all of the demigods will have to face their fears and a cast of colorful characters in order to stop Gaea from unleashing all of Tartarus on the world.

Personally, I was not nearly as excited for this book as many of my friends were. It had been a year since the cliffhanger of The Mark of Athena, and I tend to move on pretty fast unless its something I really, really like a lot, which surprisingly doesn't happen as often as it should. This being said, I had basically forgotten the details of the entire series, so it was a rough start in the beginning of the book. Still, my memory was refreshed and I rapidly devoured the book like a ravenous animal.

I really liked how Percy and Annabeth's relationship grew through their travels through Tartarus. It showed that they weren't skin-deep, but that they really were friends and wanted each other to not die. I also loved the inclusion of Bob, a call-back from the end of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. It tied up that loose end very well, and created an amazing character from what originated as something of a joke.

I should just be up front and say that in general, I really liked all of the character development. It is hard to remember that these are books for children younger than myself, because they face tough decisions and they actually think hard about them. There's no frivolity or immaturity in most of their actions anymore.

However, I wasn't too crazy about Nico. I never have been, especially since his sister died and he basically turned into a little pile of sad. The author's 'surprise' twist about Nico didn't really seem justified to me, and in fact just seemed random. He handled it well, I suppose, but other than that it didn't really add anything to the book whatsoever except sort of not really justifying Nico being a little pile of sad.

I also felt some of the Grecian/Roman mythology moments got a little teach-y, but maybe the books have always been like that and I've just not noticed before because I hadn't learned the Greek and Roman myths in-depth until last year.

The action kept me engaged, and the plot kept my head whirring as I tried to out-think the characters (especially the villains). Overall, I'm excited for the final book in the series, but I have a feeling that my excitement will wane with time once more. These are great for any lover of fantasy, and I highly recommend them, but be ready to wait a year for the next book to come out!


Until next time,
Hailey Jenkins

Take a Deep Breath

NaNoWriMo is over. The school week is over. Unfortunately, the insanity is never over.

I managed to finish NaNoWriMo in the car on the 30th, which felt wonderful despite the fact I didn't actually finish the story.

Via ywp.nanowrimo.org

In fact, as far as story arcs go, this was probably the worst year of NaNo I've had. I completely lost the plot a few days in, and my characters decided that it would be fun to switch personalities, randomly leave entirely, and have fluctuating ages I gave up trying to keep track of. I managed to write plenty of great slice of life scenes in the not-quite-dystopian society I created, but slice of life is not really good novel material.

Although I am a little disappointed that my idea went out the window this year, I'm incredibly proud to have met the 50k goal for the first time within one story. (The first year I finished at 40k, and the second I had to write a novel and its sequel which never saw the light of day.) I had a crazy November to boot, and so the fact I was able to keep up with a rigid writing schedule impressed me. I've now been taking December off, but once the holiday season is over I'll probably start back up again, either to rewrite this story or start another one.


Speaking of the holiday season, my family and I roadtripped to Texas for Thanksgiving to visit family. It was a wonderful trip, and I learned a great many things (the American Banjo Museum is in the Bricktown portion of Oklahoma City, for example) but never shall I ever enjoy eighteen hour car rides. I managed to not only knit an entire scarf, finish the majority of my homework, and read an entire novel, but finish off NaNoWriMo in the car and watch more than eight hours' worth of movies and TV shows. If anything, car rides are great for my productivity, I suppose.


Now that the school week is over, I can finally get a bit of a reprieve to recollect myself and get back into the groove of things for the two weeks before Christmas break. I'm planning on reviewing a bunch of books soon, so you all have that to look forward to! Hopefully I can think of something creative to blog about over break.

The books I'm planning on reviewing are as follows: The House of Hades by Rick Riordan, Allegiant by Veronica Roth, and The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart.


Until then,

Hailey Jenkins