✨Timelord Iroh(she/her)🏳️⚧️✨ reviewed The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan (The Heroes of Olympus #3)
What a trip
5 stars
Content warning General spoilers from throughout the book
Going from New Rome with Percy and Annabeth getting reunited and Leo (under possession) bombing New Rome all the way across the Atlantic to old Rome, meeting lots of new friends (mostly mythical this time) and taking some time outs to get nostalgic, even going back to the Lightning Thief and the first quest. Annabeth really gets her time to shine and I love her parts of the story. The way the story connected the beginning with Frank getting some "chinese handcuffs" to that being the solution for Arachne was great. Part of me really does feel bad for Arachne. I wish/hope Annabeth's stalling and promising Arachne that her art would be on Mount Olympus will come back and, like the Minor Gods got pardoned, the same can happen with some of the monsters. A lot of them don't deserve their punishments. Maybe Ahena could give up weaving and Arachne could be the (minor) Goddess of Weaving. I liked how Jason and Percy both struggled with feeling like they should be the leader and their own self doubt, and managed to come together as a team. A team as good as Percy/Annabeth, even. The trio between Frank/Leo/Hazel is settling down a bit. I'm glad that Frank and Leo were able to come to an understanding about their mutual distrust of each other, and Hazel got to talk with both of them about how much they both mean to her. I'm curious to see who she gets closer with (or even chooses someone else).