Book Review: The House of Hades

The House of Hades
Rick Riordan
Star Rating: 4
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 608

NOTE: This is the 4th book in the Heroes of Olympus series. If you have not read this book or the ones before, please read this review with caution, as spoilers may appear. Thanks!

Synopsis:

At the conclusion of The Mark of Athena, Annabeth and Percy tumble into a pit leading straight to the Underworld. The other five demigods have to put aside their grief and follow Percy's instructions to find the mortal side of the Doors of Death. If they can fight their way through the Gaea's forces, and Percy and Annabeth can survive the House of Hades, then the Seven will be able to seal the Doors from both sides and prevent the giants from raising Gaea. But, Leo wonders, if the Doors are sealed, how will Percy and Annabeth be able to escape?

Thoughts:

Rick Riordan's books just aren't the same as they used to be.

This book definitely had some things in it that I thought either could have been done better or shouldn't have been there at all.

I did like the Percabeth scenes where Bob the titan was involved, and his sidekick, but other than that, I found that the chapters taking place in the Tartarus weren't all that exciting. There were moments where I was surprised, but in the back of my mind I knew that none of the seven main characters was going to die. There wasn't much suspense in that area.

There was parts that were humorous, but I was never laughing like I did when I was reading some of his other books. He tried to draw the reader in with phrases or sentences that were meant to be funny, but I only found some of them amusing. Most of them were just dry humor that didn't work for me.

The thing in this book that made it good was the characters and dialogue. Leo has always been my favorite character, and I did like him in this book. He was lacking a smidge from the normal spark we see from him, but I still thought his appearances added to the book nicely. The dialogue has always been part of the things that I think Riordan does well.

While I thought HoH was good, there was definitely things that Riordan needs to improve on, or go back to doing so that Percy Jackson is as good as it was in his past books. I'm a little worried that his next books are going to go downhill.