That changes with the last book of the series, with Luke’s death. Their adventures were dangerous, yes, but it was the kind of danger that you knew characters could escape unscathed, physically and emotionally. When Percy, Grover, and Annabeth set out on their first quest, they were unquestionably heroes in a book for younger readers. The characters are still young, but the adventures themselves seem older. I’ve talked about this in previous reviews of this series, but it bears repeating: Riordan has let his world grow up and expand. Yeah, a lot of the characters have been around since the early PJO days. Yeah, there are mythical monsters appearing in disguise before being unveiled and defeated. Yeah, he has a team of demigod friends around to support him and mock him in equal measure. Yeah, there’s a snarky little bastard in the lead who has to save the world against impossible odds. If there’s a complaint to lodge at Riordan it’s that after a little while his books start to feel a bit repetitive. What do you think I’m going to say here? That I didn’t like it? Of course not. Jason’s sacrifice is still a huge emotional beat, so if you’ve forgotten about that you might be in trouble, but other than that you should be good to go. Apollo does a good job of briefly recapping who Nero and Python are, what’s at stake, and what he and Meg are attempting. As long as you know generally who everyone is you’ll be fine. So while it’s definitely always the best call to do a reread if possible, you’re not going to be totally lost with The Tower of Nero. There’s a fairly good recap at the beginning of the novel that reminds the reader of all the pertinent plot points. I didn’t go back and reread the other books before diving into The Tower of Nero, which is always a mistake, but it didn’t bit me as badly as usual. It’s the fifth and last book in the Trials of Apollo series and sees Apollo (in his human form, alias Lester Papodopolous) and his demigod master Meg fighting to free the last oracle by taking on their final-and most dangerous-enemies, Meg’s abusive stepfather Nero and Apollo’s longtime nemesis Python. The Tower of Nero is Riordan’s newest book. I had a karaoke machine to give my voice an echo effect and everything. We dressed up and gave a presentation in character and it was massively fun. I still remember Greek Day, when everyone was assigned a character from myth. (Is there anyone who didn’t love their Greek mythology unit back in elementary school? That was the best part of my education. Honestly, how could I not be? They’re fast-paced fantasy romps full of sassy characters and genuinely creative modernization of classic Greek mythology. I don’t always get to it as quickly as I did a few years ago, but I’m still a loyal reader. Twelve years later, I’m twenty-seven and I still buy the newest Riordan book. I found the series right as The Last Olympian came out. But we’re a lot of books past The Lightning Thief, and they’ve evolved. They’re marketed towards young readers, probably because of how young the protagonists are in The Lightning Thief. Lots of people, me included, have called his Percy Jacksonbooks the Harry Potter of this generation.
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