Book Review: Heroes of Olympus: The Son of Neptune

                              Heroes of Olympus: The Son of Neptune Review

The second book of the Heroes of Olympus series deals with the camp of Roman half-bloods that was mentioned in the first book and it has been about eight months since the first book. At the beginning of this book we learn that Percy Jackson has lost all of his memories and he then enters the Roman camp, Camp Jupiter. Soon after arriving at Camp Jupiter Percy along with Hazel Levesque daughter of Pluto(Roman version of Hades) and Frank Zhang son of Mars(Roman version of Ares) to set free death from the chains he's tied down to in Alaska, which is the land beyond the gods, and defeat the giant Alcyoneus.

Percy is my favorite character in both the Percy Jackson and the Olympian series and the Heroes of Olympus series and has been since The Lightening Thief. In this book Percy has lost all of his memories except a little bit about Annabeth which I thought was very sweet and romantic that the little that he could remember was of her. Percy is still the brave, sarcastic and all around good friend that I remembered from the first series. I loved the friendships he develops with Hazel and Frank through out their quest and I liked all of the small reference to the first series that come up once he starts remembering things. I find it interesting that Reyna, a praetor of the Twelfth Legion at Camp Jupiter and her sister Hylla, Queen of the Amazons, have sort of met Percy during The Sea of Monsters. I'm a bit worried about Percy during the rest of this series because his fatal flaw of not being to not save his love ones has come up again and since he survived the first series without this being a problem I doubt he'll be lucky enough to survive this one as well.

Hazel is the daughter of Pluto and because of this and a wish her mother made long ago, she is cursed with the ability to bring up precious metals and gems from the earth but if anyone other than her picks up these metals and gems they will be cursed with bad lucky. Hazel is also unlucky enough to have died back in 1942 when after she was tricked into raising the giant Alcyoneus she than dies while insuring that Alcyoneus won't be able to rise for many years to come. Hazel has recently been brought back to life after death had gone missing and her half brother Nico Di Angelo(another one of my favorite characters from the first series) rescues her from the underworld when he couldn't find his sister Bianca. I feel bad for Hazel through out most of the book because she's constantly worrying that once they rescue Death that she might be sent back to the underworld and that she feels guilty for helping build Alcyonues and that she couldn't save her mother from Gaea's influences. I really love Hazel she's a very sweet character with sad past, an unfortunate curse and a love for horses such as Arion, who is the fastest horse in the world and was kept by the Amazons for years and it was said that only a great warrior could tame Arion and Hazel is that great warrior.

Frank is a guy that is rather clumsy and doesn't really feel comfortable in his own skin at the beginning of this book and he was not happy that his father is the god of war since Frank dislikes wars since his mother was killed fighting in one. I liked how Frank is different from what one would think a child of Mars should be like that he doesn't want to fight but he will because it's his duty and he has to do his part in protecting the people and things he cares about. I also love that one of his talents is to be able to think tactical because planning and tactics are often just as important if not even more important than the actual battles in a war. I also find his family gift of being able to turn himself into any kind of animal to be very interesting and useful. I thought that it was strange and scary for Frank to have his life be controlled by a piece of driftwood. I loved Frank as a character because he had a good heart, was a bit awkward and he develops into a good hero as the quest goes on.

I really loved seeing how different the Roman camp was to the Greek one, with the Roman one seeming more military like than camp like and it seemed that people were generally more serious. I really loved the relationship that developed between Frank and Hazel through out the book, I think there very sweet together. I really loved the character Ella the Harpy with how she seemed a bit crazy and also very knowledgeable about a lot of things.

I overall loved this book and I can't wait to read the next book in the series because it will have all of the characters from the first two books working together in that one. Please tell me your thoughts about this book or the series in general.