Teen Reviewer: The Lost Hero

The Lost Hero (Heroes of Olympus, #1)
By: Rick Riordan
Reviewer: Emily Reeves

“It'll be dangerous," Nyssa warned him. "Hardship, monsters, terrible suffering. Possibly none of you will come back alive."
"Oh." Suddenly Leo didn't look so excited. Then he remembered everyone was watching. "I mean... Oh, cool! Suffering? I love suffering! Let's do this.” 

Description from Goodreads:
Jason has a problem. He doesn’t remember anything before waking up in a bus full of kids on a field trip. Apparently he has a girlfriend named Piper and a best friend named Leo. They’re all students at a boarding school for “bad kids.” What did Jason do to end up here? And where is here, exactly?

Piper has a secret. Her father has been missing for three days, ever since she had that terrifying nightmare. Piper doesn’t understand her dream, or why her boyfriend suddenly doesn’t recognize her. When a freak storm hits, unleashing strange creatures and whisking her, Jason, and Leo away to someplace called Camp Half-Blood, she has a feeling she’s going to find out.

Leo has a way with tools. When he sees his cabin at Camp Half-Blood, filled with power tools and machine parts, he feels right at home. But there’s weird stuff, too—like the curse everyone keeps talking about. Weirdest of all, his bunkmates insist that each of them—including Leo—is related to a god.

Join new and old friends from Camp Half-Blood in this thrilling first book in The Heroes of Olympus series.

Emily's Review (minor spoilers ahead):
In the first book of the second series that involves the same people along with some new ones, Jason doesn’t remember anything before waking up on a school bus holding hands with Piper. Apparently she’s his girlfriend. His best friend is named Leo. Everything seems very wrong. Piper’s father has been missing for three days, and her vivid nightmares reveal that he’s in terrible danger. Piper, Jason, and Leo are whisked away to Camp Half-Blood. The most troubling thing is the curse everyone keeps talking about, and that Annabeth’s boyfriend is missing. This is one of the best books that I have ever read; I totally recommend it. My favorite part of the book is when Jason saves Piper from falling to her death. My least favorite part of the book is that Annabeth does not find Percy. I cannot believe that Hera would to this to her own family; I mean she is the goddess of marriage for crying out loud!

Teen Reviewer: Percy Jackson and The Olympian Series, Books 1, 2, and 3

The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and The Olympians, #1)
The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson and The Olympians, #2)
The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and The Olympians, #3)
By: Rick Riordan
Reviewer: Emily Reeves


The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and The Olympians, #1)

“My name is Percy Jackson.
I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.
Am I a troubled kid?
Yeah. You could say that.” 

Description from Goodreads:
Percy Jackson is about to be kicked out of boarding school... again. And that's the least of his troubles. Lately, mythological monsters and the gods of Mount Olympus seem to be walking straight out of the pages of Percy's Greek mythology textbook and into his life. And worse, he's angered a few of them. Zeus' master lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the prime suspect.

Now Percy and his friends have just ten days to find and return Zeus' stolen property and bring peace to a warring Mount Olympus. But to succeed on his quest, Percy will have to do more than catch the true thief: he must come to terms with the father who abandoned him; solve the riddle of the Oracle, which warns him of betrayal by a friend; and unravel a treachery more powerful than the gods themselves.

Emily's Review (minor spoilers ahead):
In the first book of the Percy Jackson series, twelve-year-old Percy Jackson is on his first dangerous quest. With the help of Grover and Annabeth, Percy must catch a thief who has stolen Zeus’ lightning bolt. He must come to terms with a father he has never known and betrayal by a friend. I would recommend this book. My favorite part of the book is when Percy finds out who is father is. My least favorite part of this book is when Percy’s mother gets abducted by a monster. I would freak out if I found out that I was a half-blood. I mean could you imagine never knowing one of your parents? Most times the mortal parent does not even know that the other parent is a god. I would be having nightmares of all of the monsters that would be attacking me.



The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson and The Olympians, #2)

“Families are messy. Immortal families are eternally messy. Sometimes the best we can do is to remind each other that we're related for better or for worse...and try to keep the maiming and killing to a minimum.” 

Description from Goodreads:
After a summer spent trying to prevent a catastrophic war among the Greek gods, Percy Jackson is finding his seventh-grade school year unnervingly quiet. His biggest problem is dealing with his new friend, Tyson, a six-foot-three, mentally challenged homeless kid who follows Percy everywhere, making it hard for Percy to have any normal friends. But things don't stay quiet for long.

Percy soon discovers there is trouble at Camp Half-Blood: the magical borders that protect Half-Blood Hill have been poisoned by a mysterious enemy, and the only safe haven for demigods is on the verge of being overrun by mythological monsters. To save the camp, Percy needs the help of his best friend, Grover, who has been taken prisoner on an island somewhere in the Sea of Monsters, the dangerous waters Greek heroes have sailed for millennia. Only today, the Sea of Monsters goes by a new name: The Bermuda Triangle.

Together with his friends, Percy must retrieve the Golden Fleece from the Island of the Cyclopes or Camp Half-Blood will be destroyed. But first, Percy will learn a stunning new secret about his family, one that makes him question whether being claimed as Poseidon's son is an honor or simply a cruel joke.

Emily's Review (major spoilers ahead - read the review with caution if you haven't read the book yet!):
In the second book of the Percy Jackson series, the magical borders of Camp Half-Blood begin to fail. Now Percy and his friends have just days to find the only magic item powerful enough to save the camp before it is overrun by monsters. Percy must stage a rescue operation to save his friend Grover. He learns that he has a half brother that is a Cyclops. I would totally recommend this book. My least favorite part of this book is when Percy denies that Tyson is his brother. My favorite part of the book is when Thalia comes out of the tree that her father turned her into years ago to prevent her from dying. Another one of my favorite parts of the book is when Percy saves Annabeth from the sirens that are showing her what she wants to see about the future to lure her to her death.



The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympian's, #3)

“In a way, it's nice to know that there are Greek gods out there, because you have somebody to blame when things go wrong. For instance, when you're walking away from a bus that's just been attacked by monster hags and blown up by lightning, and it's raining on top of everything else, most people might think that's just really bad luck; when you're a half-blood, you understand that some devine force is really trying to mess up your day.”

 

Description from Goodreads:
When the goddess Artemis goes missing, she is believed to have been kidnapped. And now it's up to Percy and his friends to find out what happened. Who is powerful enough to kidnap a goddess? They must find Artemis before the winter solstice, when her influence on the Olympian Council could swing an important vote on the war with the titans. Not only that, but first Percy will have to solve the mystery of a rare monster that Artemis was hunting when she disappeared—a monster rumored to be so powerful it could destroy Olympus forever.

Emily's Review (minor spoilers ahead):

In the third book of the Percy Jackson series, Percy gets an urgent distress call from his friend Grover, and he immediately prepares for battle. He knows he will need his powerful demigod friends at his side and his trusty bronze sword Riptide. The demigods rush to the rescue to find that Grover has made an important discovery. The titan lord Kronos has devised another plot to get his revenge on the gods. An ancient monster has arisen. One rumored to be so powerful it could destroy Olympus. Artemis, the only goddess who might know how to track it, is missing. Now Percy and his friends have only a week to find the kidnapped goddess. I would definitely recommend this book. My least favorite part of the book is when Annabeth falls of the cliff during the rescue mission of the two new half-bloods. My favorite part of this book is when Percy meets with Aphrodite because she is suggesting that Percy like Annabeth, but he gets so flustered.

Teen Reviewer: Hangman's Curse

Hangman's Curse
By: Frank Peretti
Reviewer: Savannah Harris

Description from Goodreads:

The first in a new format of books targeted to tweens and teens, The Veritas Project: Hangman's Curse will keep readers enthralled. Frank Peretti introduces Nate Springfield, his wife Sarah, and their twin children Elijah and Elisha, who are part of the Veritas Project team. This group travels the country aiding the FBI and other organizations in breaking drug rings and solving mysteries. In Hangman's Curse, the family goes undercover at a small town high school - where a mysterious curse has turned several of the star football players into raving lunatics who can only be tied to their hospital beds while doctors are baffled by their symptoms. Elijah and Elisha must befriend the various cliques at school, and help their parents solve the mystery of Abel Frye (a name the sick kids mutter in their delirium).

This story could have come straight from the headlines about many schools around the country and will lead kids and young adults to an understanding of peer pressure and the pain that comes from being different. It is a riveting message on the wounded spirit that teens will never forget.


Savannah's Review:

Hello, my name is Savannah Harris and I am going to be writing a review for a book called The Hangman’s Curse by Frank Peretti.  In this review I will explain my thoughts about the book and why.  First of all, I want to clearly state that I fell in love with this book from the moment I started the first chapter.  I started reading at 1:32 pm and finished it at 6:00 pm that same evening.  When I started I blocked out every other noise and sound in my house and fell into a sort of “trance” that nobody could break me out of until I had finished.  I also noticed that this book was Christian-based which made me like it even more.  I felt like the author did a good job with a balance of Christian theme and a mix of mystery, adventure, and otherworldly beings.  I found that I could relate to the female character Elisha because she is very brave, strong in her beliefs, and if she thinks that something is wrong she will do her best to make it right. Overall it was a great book that I highly recommend and I look forward to reading the rest of the series.

Book Review: The Graveyard Book

The Graveyard Book
by Neil Gaiman
*****

From Goodreads:
After the grisly murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise him as one of their own.

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead. There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy. But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack—who has already killed Bod's family . . .

Beloved master storyteller Neil Gaiman returns with a luminous new novel for the audience that embraced his New York Times bestselling modern classic Coraline. Magical, terrifying, and filled with breathtaking adventures, The Graveyard Book is sure to enthrall readers of all ages.

From me:
Even though the book started out dark and creepy, I felt like the story was more fantastic and adventuresome, rather than dark or scary. Throughout the book, Bod was constantly not afraid of the things that most of us would be. Ghosts are his family, a graveyard is his home - that being true, a school bully is nothing to fear. To me, I found the overall theme to be fearlessness and the importance of really living your life, which is something I need to embrace a little more often. A great read for both children and adults.

Audio Book Review: The Red Pyramid

The Red Pyramid (Kane Chronicles #1)   *****
by Rick Riordan  

Audio CD, unabridged, read by Kevin R. Free and Katherine Kellgren

From Goodreads:
Since their mother's death, Carter and Sadie have become near strangers. While Sadie has lived with her grandparents in London, her brother has traveled the world with their father, the brilliant Egyptologist, Dr. Julius Kane.

One night, Dr. Kane brings the siblings together for a "research experiment" at the British Museum, where he hopes to set things right for his family. Instead, he unleashes the Egyptian god Set, who banishes him to oblivion and forces the children to flee for their lives.

Soon, Sadie and Carter discover that the gods of Egypt are waking, and the worst of them —Set— has his sights on the Kanes. To stop him, the siblings embark on a dangerous journey across the globe - a quest that brings them ever closer to the truth about their family and their links to a secret order that has existed since the time of the pharaohs.
From me:
The Kane Chronicles are a new series by the author of the Percy Jackson books. And by new, I mean different - this book is a couple of years old now, but the series is not connected to the Percy books (at least to my knowledge). Where the Olympians series focuses on figures from Greek mythology, the Kane titles feature the Egyptian gods. One of my favorite parts of this book was how Riordan made history interesting.

Riordan did an excellent job of creating a world that was exciting and fun. It really lends itself to the audio format, as the main characters switch back and forth with the narration as though they're making a recording for future listeners (that, and Kevin R. Price and Katherine Kellgren did an amazing job voicing the narration). The reader/listener is drawn in by the adventure and mystery, but the story is also kept light by the teasing asides between Sadie and Carter as they're narrating. I like how Riordan kept this good-versus-evil, save-the-world tale more fun than scary. The reader also gets drawn into the story as though they may be one of the children with the "blood of the pharaohs."

A great read for the prescribed age-group of grades 4-9, but I got a real kick out of it, too!

Audio Book Review: Throne of Fire

The Throne of Fire (Kane Chronicles #2)  *****
Author: Rick Riordan
Narration: Kevin Free, Katherine Kellgren

This is such a great series! I completely love the adventure story Riordan has created. It's like Indiana Jones for kids. The Kane siblings are on another quest to save the world, this time from Chaos (aka Apophis). Again, the story alternates between Sadie and Carter's narration. The book is is supposed to be a transcript of a recording, which is why the audio version is so great. Plus the readers are fantastic! (A good reader makes all the difference.)

Fun story, fun series. I highly recommend it!