Review on Percy Jackson: The Titan's Curse (Book 3) by Rick Riordan
By Aarav Kumar
Hey, guys, this my review on the third book of Percy Jackson: The Titan’s Curse, hope you enjoy it!
Warning: Spoilers ahead
Plot
Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, and Thalia Grace get a ride from Mrs. Jackson to Westover Hall, a boarding school in Bar Harbor, Maine, to escort two sibling half-bloods named Nico and Bianca di Angelo to Camp Half-Blood. They are attacked by a teacher named Dr. Thorn, who is actually a manticore. Though the goddess Artemis and her hunters arrive to help, Dr. Thorn jumps off a cliff with Annabeth on his back. Artemis is troubled by the manticore's mention of a "Great Stirring" of monsters and goes off alone to hunt an Olympus-destroying monster she believes to have finally returned from Tartarus. She sends the half-bloods and Hunters (whose numbers now include Bianca di Angelo) to Camp Half-Blood with her brother Apollo.
At camp, Percy and Blackjack save a sea monster that Percy nicknames Bessie, and Artemis's lieutenant Zoë Nightshade begins having mysterious dreams about Artemis in grave danger. Percy has dreams about Annabeth saving Luke from being crushed by the ceiling of a cave and holding it up for him. Both Zoë and Percy are unable to act until the Oracle (an old mummy) somehow leaves the attic in the Big House and delivers Zoë a prophecy. She and Chiron organize a quest, and she decides to bring Thalia, Grover Underwood, Bianca, and another Hunter with her. Percy is forbidden from going because the Hunters refuse to travel with a male. He successfully sneaks away from camp on Blackjack, though he is almost stopped by Mr. D, who only agrees to let him go because there is a high chance Percy will be killed while on the quest.
When he arrives in Washington, D.C., Percy notices Dr. Thorn heading into the National Museum of Natural History and follows him using Annabeth's invisibility hat. Luke and a man called the General are there, and together they summon Spartoi to hunt the official quest group, who is nearby in the National Air and Space Museum. Percy tries to warn the group, but they are attacked by the Nemean Lion before they can leave. They fight the lion and manage to kill it. The quest group and Percy flee, and, on the advice of Apollo, travel to Cloudcroft, New Mexico. In Cloudcroft, Grover senses the presence of Pan, who sends the Erymanthian Boar to help them escape the Spartoi. The boar carries them as far as Gila Claw, Arizona, and the "junkyard of the gods." After a brief encounter with Ares and Aphrodite, the group enters the junkyard, where Bianca tries to take a cursed statuette for Nico. Her theft awakens a prototype of Talos, and she gives her life to bring it down. The remaining quest members travel to Hoover Dam, and, after narrowly escaping the Spartoi again, arrive in San Francisco on the backs of two bronze flying angels.
Once there, Percy seeks out Nereus and learns that the monster Artemis was hunting is Bessie, the monster he saved back at camp with Blackjack, who is an Ophiotaurus. After a final encounter with Dr. Thorn in which Percy pleads with Mr. D to help him defeat the manticore, Grover heads back to Camp Half-Blood with Bessie. Zoë, Percy, and Thalia go to find Frederick Chase, Annabeth's father, in the hope that he will help them reach their final destination: Mount Tamalpais, the modern location of the Titans' fortress on Mount Othrys. With Professor Chase's car, they travel to the Garden of Hesperides. Zoë is wounded by the dragon Ladon while they pass through. At the place where Atlas once held up the sky, the group finds Artemis now doing his job. After seeing Annabeth tied up and held hostage by Luke and learning that "the General" is Zoë's father, the Titan Atlas, Percy takes the sky from Artemis so she can fight against the Titan. Artemis engages Atlas and is able to trap him under the sky again, but not before he seriously wounds Zoë by pushing her off of a cliff. Thalia battles Luke, and he falls from the cliff, apparently dead. With the help of Mr. Chase, who arrives in a biplane he has fitted with machine guns that fire celestial bronze bullets, they escape and travel to a nearby airfield in Artemis' silver chariot. Zoë dies shortly after landing and Artemis makes a constellation in her honor. The rest of the group then head for Mount Olympus.
During the winter solstice meeting, the gods are finally convinced by Artemis to take action against the Titans. Thalia is also asked by Artemis to become an immortal Huntress, and she accepts, delaying the onset of the Great Prophecy. Percy is told by his father, Poseidon, that Luke is miraculously alive. Percy and Annabeth return to Camp Half-Blood worried about the future. Before he is able to relax, however, Percy is forced to explain Bianca's death to Nico. Nico immediately blames Percy, as Percy promised to keep her safe. When a group of Spartoi arrives to attack Percy, Nico banishes them to the underworld, revealing himself as a son of Hades. Nico runs away from camp and Percy tells the truth of Nico's parentage to Annabeth and Grover. They promise to hide this fact from everyone else, especially the Titan's army because this means that there are again two possible heroes for the Great Prophecy.
Overall, I would give this book 4.5/5.
So, will Nico forgive Percy, or will it lead to a terrible grudge between the son of Hades and the son of Poseidon? To buy the book from Amazon click here. To buy it from Flipkart click here.