Book Review: Revisiting “The Titan’s Curse” by Rick Riordan

Here we are, the third installment in the Percy Jackson series, and the hardest for me to get through. We will discuss this after a brief description.

When the goddess Artemis goes missing, she is believed to have been kidnapped. And now it’s up to Percy and his friends to find out what happened. Who is powerful enough to kidnap a goddess? They must find Artemis before the winter solstice, when her influence on the Olympian Council could swing an important vote on the war with the titans. Not only that, but first Percy will have to solve the mystery of a rare monster that Artemis was hunting when she disappeared-a monster rumored to be so powerful it could destroy Olympus forever.

(Description from Amazon)

The reason this book is so hard for me to get through is that I severely dislike Artemis’s Hunters. The Hunters are Artemis’s group of eternal maidens that follow her every order, and have sworn off boys in trade for immortality. It’s weird that I don’t like them because I do like Artemis. I just hate that the Hunters are so snotty toward the heroes. I can completely understand why Zoe, Artemis’s right hand hates heroes, but the rest of them don’t seem to have a substantial reason, other than some of them are boys. Their attitudes make it really hard to read the first third of this book because they act like brats. Zoe does redeem herself in my eyes, but I still hate the beginning of this book.

I like that this book has a larger focus on the significance of prophecies. I feel like the prophecies have been important in the past, but not near as important as the prophecy in this book. The stakes are much higher, people will die, and everything hangs in the balance. The tone of the Percy Jackson series takes a darker turn with this book and the prophecy is the perfect illustration of that. Here’s the prophecy if you’re curious.

Five shall go west to the goddess in chains,

One shall be lost in the land without rain,

The bane of Olympus shows the trail,

Campers and Hunters combined prevail,

The Titan’s curse must one withstand,

And one shall perish by a parent’s hand.

Another thing that bothers me and is related to the prophecies is the prophecy that Chiron withholds from Percy. Chiron knows a prophecy that likely refers to Percy and his potential demise. This reminds me of Dumbledore in Harry Potter, and Dumbledore gets a lot of heat for withholding life or death information from Harry, yet Chiron does not. The person who has the info always keeps it from the main character in fear that they will try and change things, but in turn makes things worse by keeping the information secret. I had to point out this parallel because I feel like it’s so similar, but the fandoms treat them so differently.

This book does a lot of great character building for Percy. He is now forced to work with Thalia, the daughter of Zeus, and the potential other person the prophecy could belong to. Not only does Percy have to work with her, but he feels the need to compete with her a little bit, and I’ll add that he’s a bit jealous of how she’s treated. We get to see that while Percy doesn’t want to be the child of the prophecy, he does want to be important. I don’t think this is a bad thing. I think it shows that Percy really does want to be a hero and he has the heart of a hero, Percy wants to be the best at what he does. He just doesn’t realize it. Thalia is a threat to that, but they’re also friends, and that makes their relationship complicated.

In this book, we also get to see some character development for Dionysus. Since we haven’t really talked about him, he’s the Camp Half-Blood director and the god of wine plus many other things. He was sent to camp as a punishment for goofing around with someone he shouldn’t and he’s notorious for hating campers, yet, he goes out of his way to help Percy on his quest. Toward the end of this novel he also votes to kill Percy, but I think it’s only for appearances. I think Dionysus only votes to kill Percy because he knows that he won’t win. I like how this book develops a soft spot for an otherwise irksome god. I found myself appreciating him way more.

I give The Titan’s Curse a 4/5 stars. To me, this book is still very strong, but doesn’t quite stand up to the first too. Definitely worth reading, just not as lovable.

Have you made it to the third Percy Jackson installment? Let me know what you think in the comments.