The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians #3) by Rick Riordan / Books Teacup and Reviews

The Titan’s Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians #3) by Rick Riordan
Publication Date : 2013 (first published May 5th 2007)
Publisher : Penguin Club
Read Date : February 12th 2019
Genre : urban Fantasy / Mythology / Middle Grade / YA / Adventure
Stars : 5/5

IT’S NOT EVERYDAY YOU FIND YOURSELF IN COMBAT WITH A HALF-LION, HALF-HUMAN.

But when you’re the son of a Greek god, it happens. And now my friend Annabeth is missing, a goddess is in chains and only five half-blood heroes can join the quest to defeat the doomsday monster.

Oh, and guess what? The Oracle has predicted that not all of us will survive…

The Titan’s Curse, third installment in PJO series, revolved around Percy’s quest of rescuing goddess and Annabeth and save the world from the new evil plan of Luke who is now completely under the spell of Kronos. It is about friendship, good vs evil, some immortal family drama, a non stop battle of overthrowing each other and being true hero.

From the blurb only shows how intriguing this book is going to be. Annabeth is missing, a goddess is in danger, prophecy says five should go on quest from long Island west and two shall perish during the quest. Who those two are?

It started with discovery of 2 strong half-bloods, a fight with spike throwing half Lion and half human monster, riding back on sun chariot with some not-so-friendly young eternal maidens, and as always some terrifying nightmares that force them to go on deadly quest. Things got really exciting when we get to know Thalia might be a prophecy as she was going to turn 16 in few days.

I felt like a teen jumping with excitement when I started this book. This third book was much better and more entertaining than first two. Adventure, prophecy, humor, Percy’s sassy and witty nature, twist and turns everything goes one level up. Oh and loved the writing. Did I mention before how interesting titles of this book are? ‘I Break A Few Rocket Ships’, ‘I Wrestle Santa’s Evil Twin’, ‘We Meet Dragon Of Eternal Bad Breath’… Not just this but all books in series has catchy titles.

This time Percy deals with insecurity because of all attention going to Zeus’s daughter Thalia, being a second famous hero as Thalia is senior in experience, even though she was a tree; his confusion about his feeling for Annabeth, uneasiness on prospect of Annabeth joining hunters, grief on losing her, missing his half-brother and father, feeling angry because of his rash decision and sad as everyone considered Thalia over him. All his emotions felt realistic. As book progressed he turned out better like previous books. He got over his feelings and looked at the present situation more maturely and fought bravely side by side with his friends against their common enemy. And Percy gets to know about his fatal flaw in the end, I loved that part most in the book.

Luck was creative villain who came up with another new strategy with one goal overthrowing Olympians and ruling the world godless with treacherous Titans. Thalia surprised me by showing hopes for Luck and also made me anxious when they came face to face in climax. There was a moment when I thought she would consider joining him and his evil plan. But I liked the decision she made in the end. It was brave and really admiring. It shows readers how tempting the taste of power can be and how much strength one needs to fight it.

Thalia and Percy made deadly combination. I so much missed Annabeth in whole book and when we met her again in climax, it was such an overwhelming feel. Oh and her dad was really amazing. We see why Athena fell in love with this smart crazy professor. Grover was as usual amusing but what I liked more was we get to see his satirical power and he was braver than previous book, one step closer to his biggest dream.

Two new strong half-blood we meet in the book were Nico and Bianca. I loved Nico in the beginning. He was sweet child. His awe and excitement on seeing his mythomagic game coming to reality was infectious. Bianca was selfish for making life changing decision and leaving Nico alone to care for himself, but I couldn’t hold grudge after what happened. And hunters were all strong-female-character lover’s dream.

Myth was just fabulous in this book. We get to know about hunters, Zoe’s history with the famous hero and Percy’s blade riptide, the General, Garden of Hesperides, Mountain of despair, doomsday monster; we are also introduced to new and some ancient gods and goddess- Artemis, Apollo, Aphrodite, Nereus, and Athena (she can be really intimidating, you don’t want on her bad side). Oh I was mesmerized by entry scene of Aphrodite. Author wrote more than perfect description about her. She was definitely most dangerous goddess. Percy feared her more than Ares, so you can imagine what I mean.

End was great. Sad, shocking and I also liked decision of Olympians.
This book was full package of lots of emotions, angst, tense, sad, lovely and awe-inspiring moments with lots of witty humor and twist and turns. And now I’m desperate to read fourth book in the series. I would love to know more about new mortal character who happens to see through the mist and saved Percy’s life.

Overall, it was just fabulous, super fast paced, Greek mythomagical adventure that readers of MG, YA genre would definitely enjoy.