Letter to the author

Dear Rick Riordan, I just recently finished the newest book in your series The Heros of Olympus, The House of Hades. I thought it was an excellent book and my favorite piece of your writing to far. I thought that the plot was very good and different from the rest of your books making it unique. I thought that when you made the character Nico come out of the closet for being gay it was very shocking as a reader. I have never read a book were this has happened and found it a very nice addition to the plot. While reading book reviews I saw many different opinions on this. I think that as a writer you took a chance by doing this, and for that I applaud you. Sincerely, Spencer Petrov

End of Book One

I have just finished reading The House of Hades by Rick Riordan. It was a very good book, and I enjoyed reading it. This book picks up were the last one ended, with Percy and Annabeth falling into hell. In hell they are faced with many challenges, the most important surviving. On their journey they are trying to get to the doors of death that are being held open and letting dead beings into the mortal world. While this is happening another story is taking place with the other main characters trying to travel the mortal side of the doors of death to meet Percy and Annabeth, if they make it out of hell, but they have challenges of their own to take care of. I thought that this book was very good and well written. I would give it a 5 out of 5 stars. I would give it such a high rating for an exciting plot and very good character development that the books haven’t had in a while. People who would also enjoy this book would be someone who enjoys reading books about fantasy and adventure .

Favorite Character

As I have finished The House of Hades by Rick Riordan I have been left with many new and conflicting feelings. It was a good ending that was completely different from the last book in the series, which was good because it didn’t seem like the author was doing the same old thing in all his books. The best thing that I believe that Rick Riordan did was he had many character developments in this latest book. He opened up on one of the characters who has been the secretive, shy and awkward person in all of the books. The amazing insight was that this character, Nico Diangalo, turned out to be gay and he has a crush on one of the other main characters Percy Jackson. When Nico revealed this, I had to reread it THREE times to make sure I was reading it right. It made me think, had Rick Riordan planned this for this character the whole time? In the sentence where he introduced Nico into the story line, did he know that almost six books later he would come out as being gay, in a dramatic turn of events? I don’t think Rick Riordan could have possibly planned that from the moment that he introduced Nico, because he had the opportunity to do so not only in the first three books of this series, but also in the other books in the original series. I just feel with it being such a big secret it would be hard to hold that back from the readers, and it would shock me if he planned a whole SERIES ahead to release such a monumental fact. The fact does make a lot of sense though, and it explains things from previous books, so maybe it was a idea that he had in the back of his mind, that he thought he could maybe use sometime. Or perhaps it is a fact added to make the story feel current in response to all the controversy surrounding gay and lesbians and laws being passed on these topics. Either way I think that I like this addition. I personally feel like it does make the story line seem more current even though some reviews about this book show a lot of negative comments on this new character aspect. I feel like it’s a nice new and different character development addition that I have never seen in a book. And only one other character knows about Nico’s confession, so I can’t wait until Nico "comes out" and admits his sexual orientation to the other characters, especially Percy. With this admission, I feel like Nico is easier to like and more open, because he overcame his fear to reveal his secret. His honesty and courage have made him my favorite character in this book. Because of his revelation, I now better understand some of his actions in previous books.