The Hidden Oracle Book Review

The first book of the Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson companion series Trials of Apollo, The Hidden Oracle, does not fail to be every bit as hilarious as the original Percy Jackson books. In the novel, Apollo, a god portrayed as egotistical, conceited, and generally unlikeable, is forced by his father Zeus to come to Earth as a punishment. On Earth, he is ordinary teenager Lester Papadopolous, who has acne, is beat up in dumpsters, and is forced to be a slave to a twelve year old daughter of Demeter named Meg. As Apollo struggles to figure out what quest his father Zeus wants him to complete, he stays in his own cabin at Camp Half-Blood with his many demigod children. However, not everyone’s alliances lie with who Apollo originally expected, and with time he realizes the people involved in the latest immortal uprising are not who he quite who he thought. Though The Hidden Oracle is an excellent book, the villain is contrived, and his motivations are not as clear cut as those of Gaea or Kronos in the other Percy Jackson books. The story’s basis in mythology is not as strong as it was in the other books; Rick Riordan takes some serious liberties. Fans of Annabeth will be disappointed that she is entirely absent in the novel aside from a mention by Percy, who is also not involved in much of the book. Rick Riordan’s easy sense of comedy displayed in Percy Jackson and the Olympians and The Heroes of the Olympus is nowhere near as casual in The Hidden Oracle, and many of the jokes feel forced. However, the book in by no means any less than uproariously hilarious, and is appropriate for readers aged 10-14.