Review: House of Hades by Rick Riordan

Hazel stands at a crossroads. She and the remaining crew of the Argo II could return home with the Athena Parthenos statue and try to stop Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter from going to war. Or they could continue their quest to find the House of Hades, where they might be able to open the Doors of Death, rescue their friends Percy and Annabeth from Tartarus, and prevent monsters from being reincarnated in the mortal world. Whichever road they decide to take, they have to hurry, because time is running out. Gaea, the bloodthirsty Earth Mother, has set the date of August 1 for her rise to power.

Annabeth and Percy are overwhelmed. How will the two of them make it through Tartarus? Starving, thirsty, and in pain, they are barely able to stumble on in the dark and poisonous landscape that holds new horrors at every turn. They have no way of locating the Doors of Death. Even if they did, a legion of Gaea's strongest monsters guards the Doors on the Tartarus side. Annabeth and Percy can't exactly launch a frontal assault.

Despite the terrible odds, Hazel, Annabeth, Percy, and the other demigods of the prophecy know that there is only one choice: to attempt the impossible. Not just for themselves, but for everyone they love. Even though love can be the riskiest choice of all.

Join the demigods as they face their biggest challenges yet in The House of Hades, the hair-raising penultimate book in the best-selling Heroes of Olympus series.

Audiobook
(Narrated by )

~ 597 pgs

Third person, alternating pov.

Yep, you must have read the others or you'll be lost.

No, but the tension is building and everything is coming to a head so it has that same level of argh! that ending on a cliffhanger does.

This is the first in this series that I haven't rated as five stars. This may give the impression that I didn't love it as much as the others, and that's not entirely true, it doesn't mean that it wasn't a great read, for it was. It was just more... I don't know. Disjointed than the others?
In the previous books in the series, there have been multiple pov but the characters have been on the same track. They've been together, working towards the same goal even when one group has broken off to take care of something.
In this book, you have Percy and Annabeth fighting their way through Tartarus and the rest of the Heroes fighting their way towards the House of Hades.

Both groups are fighting towards the same goal, close the doors of death, but maybe it's because of the physical distance between them or maybe it's because the two groups don't interact until the very end of the book but the House of Hades felt... odd.
You'd be on the edge of your seat, tense and desperate to find out what happens next to Percy and Annabeth and then the next chapter would jump to Hazel et al on the surface and you'd have to wait another 3 or 4 chapters to get back to Percy and Annabeth.
By the time the book moved back toward Percy and Annabeth you'd be engrossed in what was happening on the surface with the others and wouldn't want to jump back towards Tartarus.
At one point, Leo breaks off from the group and then you have three distinct but connected plots interweaving and the poor emotions take a battering!

This grumble aside, the House of Hades packs a punch.
The stakes have never been higher. The Heroes must push themselves to the absolute limit to close the doors. Alliances are formed, sacrifices are made and each of the seven Heroes (plus Nico) will never be the same.

I loved how Nico came to prominence in this book. The son of Hades has been around since book three of the Percy Jackson series. He's had page time and character development, but we still don't know a lot about what makes him tick. In this book, you get inside Nico's head and he broke my heart. He's been through so much and is capable of terrifying ruthlessness but he fights for what is right even if his methods are sometimes whacked. I developed a serious affection for the underworld's princeling and actually feel scared for him as he sets off with Reyna to continue their part in the fight against Gaia.

And that's the thing with these books! They make you care! They make you care for these characters as though they were living, breathing, beings that you could reach out and touch!
Rick Riordan has a freaking gift and when you combine it with humour and warmth and excellent story-telling you get something that is truly magical.

I'm immediately moving onto book five because I need to know how this ends - and I hope and pray none of them dies! I couldn't bear it! - and I'm already sad that this journey is almost over.
The crew of the Argo II (and Nico!) have stolen a piece of my soul and I already miss them even though there's one more book to go before the journey is over!

"Psyche had been right. Cupid was a monster. Love was the most savage monster of all.”

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“It's natural to feel fear. All great warriors are afraid. Only the stupid and the delusional are not...”

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“I figure the universe is basically like a machine. I don't know who made it, if it was the Fates, or the gods, or capital-G God, or whatever. But it chugs along the way it's supposed to most of the time. Sure, little pieces break and stuff goes haywire once in a while, but mostly...things happen for a reason.”