[Book Review] The Hidden Oracle

[Book Review] The Hidden Oracle

June 2016

The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan

Rating: 5/5

Goodreads Review: All spoilers are blanked out

SPOILER REVIEW BELOW

“Zeus needed someone to blame, so of course he’d picked the handsomest, most talented, most popular god in the pantheon: me.”

I can’t say for sure because it’s been a few years since I’ve read a Riordan book but this might be my favourite one yet.

Also, just a side note. This book is called The Hidden Oracle. The cover is so hard to navigate that I was calling it The Trials of Apollo the whole time. The series name is actually The Trials of Apollo. Go figure.

“Sally ruffled his hair. “There’s guacamole, sour cream, refried beans, salsa—”
Seven layers?” I looked up in wonder. “You knew seven is my sacred number? You invented this for me?”

I never fully appreciated or understood how much Percy Jackson and his friends meant to me until I read this book. When Apollo knocked on Percy’s door I actually squealed, this has never happened before. I was smiling soo hard when Leo got to camp, guys I think I broke my face.

Percy Jackson.

We met a few of the old characters but let’s be real we were the most excited about Percy and Annabeth. Annabeth is currently in Boston *wink wink* I see you Riordan. Percy is currently trying to study for his SATs and pass school without being killed.

Percy snorted. “I hate to study. I’ve been guaranteed admission with a full scholarship to New Rome University, but they’re still requiring me to pass all my high school courses and score well on the SAT. Can you believe that? Not to mention I have to pass the DSTOMP.”

“The what?” Meg asked.

“An exam for Roman demigods,” I told her. “The Demigod Standard Test of Mad Powers.”

I was soo glad when I found out he wasn’t really going to be involved with the quest. He helped out by getting meg and Apollo to camp and that was pretty much it and he said he would try and stop by to check on them on the weekend. I was soo happy when he turned up and helped save the camp, any chance to see Percy throughout this series will make me very happy, so long as he’s not directly involved with any of the plot.

Chiron.

Dude, demigods are going missing and you’re going to let the rest of the kids go on a three legged death race through the labyrinth? I get it, Harvey’s a cutie but bro you only have a handful of kids at camp at the moment and some of them are missing. What are you doing?

Chiron is typically known as the wise character, the one the campers go to when they need help with anything. I don’t know, I guess it kind of threw me off that he acted a bit different with Apollo in this book. Maybe it’s because Apollo was a god and the gods are supposed to be leaders and know what’s up but there was something weird about the way he treated Apollo. If it had been Percy in Apollo’s place you can guarantee that Chiron would have dropped everything if Percy so much as needed help tying his shoelaces. Chiron loves the kids, which is okay because I do too. I found that through this novel Apollo kept going to Chiron saying that he needed to talk to him and that look, I know you’re busy but this is kinda important! But, Chiron would pass him off and say they could talk later. I feel like Apollo needs to become worthy of the level of love and respect that Chiron has for Percy and then Chiron will listen to him. I hope that we see their relationship develop through the series.

Sexuality

Apollo is openly bisexual. This is a beautiful thing. A lot of kids today, and even adults don’t even know what bisexuality is so to have a bi character in a middle grade/ young adult novel makes me really happy. Rick is adding more and more diverse characters into his novels, like Apollo. Apollo wasn’t afraid to mention that some of the greatest loves of his life were male.

Will turned to me. “I apologize for my boyfriend.”

Nico rolled his eyes. “Could you not―”

“Would you prefer special guy?” Will asked. “Or significant other?”

“Significant annoyance, in your case,” Nico grumbled.

When Apollo found out that his (amazing) son, Will was dating Nico his only concern was that Will was dating a child of Hades. Which is, you know understandable because he’s the son of the God of death & loneliness and Nico (is adorable) a bit creepy if you don’t really know him.

I have minor problems with the way this ended but otherwise this book was brilliant.

Leo Valdez. This little shit. He’s back with sass and trouble in hand. I knew as soon as I was getting towards the end of chapter 38 that he was coming but I was not fully prepared for the last chapter. The campers were lining up to punch him, how rude (I would’ve punched him soo hard to be honest). And then Harvey, that cute little death obsessed boy punched him and started crying. I’m pretty sure in that moment we were all Harvey. And then Chiron bloody kicked him. I laughed soo hard when it happened, it was a glorious thing to read and then read again. This is one of the many reasons why we love Chiron.

The Prophecy:

“There once was a god named Apollo

Who plunged in a cave blue and hollow

Upon a three-seater

The bronze fire-eater

Was forced death and madness to swallow”

Guys, I really can’t wait for the next book. I hope Rick can live up to all the hype, no pressure.

Additional Thoughts:

Rick. My man.

I need a standalone about Percy’s sister. I need a contemporary or something non-myth related because dude I would buy the crap out of that book.

“Mum, why is Percy running outside with a pen and yelling die demon?”

“Mum, Percy’s been under the water for a while. Should we check on him?”

“Mum, what’s this camp Percy’s been talking about? Can I go?”

Also I really need Percy to teach her to swim. It just needs to be a thing.

While I really want to have the hilarity of knowing what she doesn’t I also want her to have a (sort of) normal life where she’s stressing about homework and her crush and ohmygod mum no you can’t hug me in front of everyone!