Heroes of Olympus Book One: The Lost Hero was a bit of a disappointment after the Percy Jackson series. Why? Well, let's start with the main characters Jason, Piper and Leo who I didn't think were as well-developed as the previous main characters Percy, Annabeth and Grover (The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series). Author Rick Riordan left too much undeveloped in the first book of the new series (Heroes of Olympus) leaving much of it for the next book, unlike in the first book of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series book, The Lightning Thief where you really knew all of them by the end of that book.
I thought Jason, who was a son of Zeus was a little too talented, solving problems without enough effort. All the greatest heroes were sons of Zeus and it just seems like it's been done a hundred times before. I like the idea of having Percy Jackson as the main character be a son of Poseidon (in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series) much more than having a son of Zeus, because it leaves a lot more room for him to learn and grow and be creative. Riordan has a way of writing Percy that makes him think and have to figure things out on the spot. For example, when Percy was forced to clean a thousand pounds of horse manure from a stable (in the fourth book), he had to use his brain and a little help from a naiad to figure out how to call to the sea, whereas Jason already has most of the fighting skills he needs from the beginning. All Jason has to do is use the skills that he already has to beat monsters whereas Riordan makes Percy learn as he goes, making it far more interesting.
The fact that Jason starts out with no memory and no idea where, or who he is should have made it more interesting, but it somehow didn't. The other two characters, Piper and Leo try to jog his memory, which makes an interesting beginning, but Jason still seems too amazing.
Piper was basically a less interesting version of Annabeth. At the beginning of the book she has just had a dream that reveals to her terrible news about her father. She thinks that Jason is her boyfriend and is very upset about Jason's memory loss, because he now doesn't remember her. She is a daughter of Aphrodite, but hates being one and doesn't like her cabin mates at all. Even after she is claimed by her mother she doesn't change much, but you can notice subtle changes in her as she starts to care about her appearance. Her back-story just isn't as interesting as some of the other characters. She and Annabeth quickly become friends, even though Annabeth is only in the book at the very beginning.
Leo was probably my favorite character. He put life and energy into the book. He had a lot of interesting back-story especially about his mom. He reminded me of Tyson (The Percy Jackson and The Olympians series) a little bit. He was a son of Hephaestus, which was very interesting because instead of using a sword or spear he simply used "a universal remote and a screwdriver" and whatever happened to be around him. Instead of using a weapon and physical strength, he uses his brain.
So that's what I have to say about the main characters and that's just my personal opinion. There are a couple other things that I will say about the book. In The Lost Hero, Chiron wasn't in the book very much, which I think was a mistake and he also sounded like he was much older than in the previous books, although he is supposed to never age (as long as he is still training heroes) and it was based only a couple months after The Last Olympian (the fifth and final Percy Jackson and the Olympians book).
I don't know if you prefer to listen to or read books, but I listen to books when I'm "reading" with other people and this particular book is one I listened to. If you have not already listened/read the book I highly recommend reading it because the narrator in my opinion didn't do a very good job at all. Some people said that the narrator for the Percy Jackson series didn't do a good job, but in my opinion he was much better than the new narrator. I found his voice made me feel like I was listening to a documentary rather than a fantasy novel, and the voices were all too similar.
Even given all of this, the book was not a bad book but Riordan's writing was not quite as good as the Percy Jackson series, so I would give it ★★★1/2 stars (/5) as a rating and I think it is worth reading. I also think that you should read the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series first (don't bother with the movie it was really bad).
Comments welcome.
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