A friend recently told me, he wished he read more nonfiction because there is more to learn in nonfiction than fiction. While I understand the sentiment, I believe you can learn equally as much from fiction as nonfiction. Authors study and do a lot of research for some of their books. They write what they know and learn what they don’t know. Reading a text book about Greek Mythology sounds tedious. Why not just pick the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan. In The Titan’s Curse we learn about Atlas’s curse. We also get to learn about the one creature, who when slain could kill the gods. While not as good as the previous books, The Titan’s Curse greatly sets up the last two books of the series.
The Summary
The Titan’s Curse starts with Percy, Grover, Annabeth, and a newly untreeafied Thalia attempting to sneak into a military school. Grover discovered two half-blood siblings attend the school. A manticore that works for Luke also discovers the children. This leads to a fight outside the school where Percy and friends are saved by Artemis, the moon goddess, and her huntresses. The manticore manages to kidnap Annabeth amongst all the chaos.
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One of the siblings, Bianca, decides to leave her brother behind and become a huntress. Her brother, Nico, is furious but agrees to go to Camp Half-Blood. Artemis decides to leave the huntresses there as well, while she looks for a monster that could be the end of the gods.
Later that night, both Percy and Zoe, leader of the huntresses, dream a similar dream where both Annabeth and Artemis are captured and imprisoned by a huge weight. They both demand to go on a quest to rescue them. The oracle comes to Zoe telling her five must go west to free Artemis. Percy wants to be one of the five but Zoe does not want to work with a boy. She chooses to take Bianca, another huntress, Thalia, and Grover, who she claims is not a boy because he’s a satyr. The other huntress ends up decommissioned due to a prank so Percy decides he must go on the quest to save Annabeth.
Percy follows Zoe on a Pegassus named Blackjack. Percy meets up with them at the Smithsonian when he overhears the titan called The General, plotting Zoe and her friend’s demise. Zoe feels angry that Percy snuck onto their quest but that is slowly replaced by a little respect because he saves them all from the Nemean lion. Zoe gives him the cloak of the lion which is used like armor.
From there the group travels west to New Mexico. They are confronted by zombie-like creatures that will not die. The god of nature, Pan, sends them a gift of nature which allows them to escape the skeletons. This gift includes a giant boar that takes them to the junkyard of the gods. Percy encounters Ares again and his girlfriend Aphrodite, who tells him she wanted him on this quest to rescue Annabeth. While walking through the junkyard Bianca takes something for her brother and wakes a giant robot.
After the junkyard, Thalia drives them to the Hoover Dam. Once again the zombies find them. While Percy tries to escape he almost slashes a mortal girl named Rachel Dare, who can see through the mist. Rachel steers the skeletons in another direction allowing Percy to escape. Rachel is an important character in the next books and gives us our first look into her personality. I think she is great.
The group finally makes it to San Francisco. They find an old sea god to ask about the creature that can destroy Olympus. The sea god tells them it’s the ophiotaurus. The ophiotaurus is an innocent sea cow, but there is power in killing innocent creatures. Whoever sacrifices the ophiotaurus gains the power to overthrow Olympus. Thalia hesitates when offered the power because sometimes power is hard to pass up. The group realizes they must go to Mount Tam to face the Titan Atlas to save Artemis and Annabeth.
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On Mount Tam, Luke tries to offer the power once again to Thalia but she refuses. Percy charges head on to fight Atlas himself while Thalia goes to fight Luke. Up to this book, this is one of my favorite fights, mainly because Percy does not give one care when it comes to challenging people to fights. He just dives in head first. I can’t spoil everything so you will have to read it to learn what happens at the end.
The Good
I enjoyed The Titan’s Curse quite a bit. Learning about Thalia’s punk personality, Zoe’s backstory and meeting the wonderful Rachel Dare. This book still is very fast paced but I feel like it slows down at some parts to better get to know the characters and mythology. In this book we get a taste of our first major titan, Atlas, who is punished to hold up the sky. Titans become more prevalent in the next two books but it’s finally nice to read about one of the big bad guys.
Percy and Grover have giant differing personalities and it’s nice to see their relationship. The humor, while cheesy, always leaves me smiling. Some of the things Percy says or does is entertaining and the playful teasing really shows the friendships the characters have with one another.
The Bad
The biggest issue I have with this book is that compared to the other ones it’s repetitive. In the first book Percy went to rescue his mom, in the second book he rescued Grover, and now in the third book we went to rescue Annabeth. Percy and his friends are rescuing someone from the monsters.
I love the dynamic between Percy, Grover, and Annabeth and when one is missing the dynamic is greatly changed. We do not get to see their friendship grow or hear what one thinks about the other. Like the previous book, one of them is missing so that dynamic is missing. Don’t get me wrong I love Thalia’s unique style and dynamic she brings to the group but it isn’t the same without Grover or Annabeth.
The Rating
Like the books before The Titan’s Curse, I love reading about all their adventures. I love learning about Greek mythology and the modern twist Riordan puts on it. With this book he introduced some new heroes, expanded my knowledge on myths, and kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time. However, this book is missing that special bond Percy, Grover, and Annabeth have. It also took me longer to finish than the previous books. The repetitive nature of always rescuing someone also brings the rating down. While it is an integral part to the overarching story this book is not as enjoyable as the first two.
7/10 a good book
How are you liking our Percy Jackson blog series? Do you agree or disagree with my rating? Do you like this book more than the other ones? Feel free to leave a comment below letting us know. We always appreciate feedback. Thanks for reading.
As always, happy reading!