First read of the year

A bit late, yes. But, better late...

Sooo, my first read for the year is "Heroes of Olympus: The House of Hades" - awesome book to start the year off with.

At first it was a bit slow getting into the book. And also a little confusing as I couldn't really remember much of what had happened in "The Mark of Athena" - I couldn't remember the ending, or pretty much anything! And, I have no idea where I left my copy of "The Mark of Athena" so I couldn't just go back and skim it over.

But, slowly, as I delved deeper into The House of Hades I managed to piece things together. I still cannot remember how The Mark of Athena ended, but I managed to make sense of The House of Hades.

When I first realised the next installment in the "Heroes of Olympus" series was out I was so ecstatic. I hate the long wait between the book I've just read and the one to come. Especially when the previous book ends on a cliffhanger! Sometimes I think it would just be better to just wait till all the books have been released then read them all one after another, but then I just can't wait!

So, anyhoo, to get back to what I was saying... I was excited that "The House of Hades" was finally out. But, as I said earlier, I couldn't really remember all of the back story. And that takes away the ability to fully enjoy the book. So I wasn't really into the story at first. Hence, it took me so long to get through. And I also found that I seemed to be finding the story a bit boring and predictable. Like, the heroes are all hunky-dory, but then they have to face this huge challenge, and it seems completely impossible and there's beyond any hope of them winning this one... then, BAM, some miracle or the other happens and they make it through... Sure, they get roughed up a bit, they may lose some stuff along the way... But in the end all's alright...

And so I was finding myself a little annoyed and bored. Also, the number of spelling and grammatical errors in this book! Gosh, its an eyesore. At certain points it was almost torture! Sure, a book is quite dense and so you expect one or two errors here and there - I've come across them in many books. But there is a limit. And the errors in this book have crossed the limit. Editors exist for a reason. I'm sure such a big name book, published by a big name publishing company, (the Penguin Group is a pretty big publishing company, aint it?) would have to go through quite the editing process before being published... I expect better from this series, even if it is a children's novel. I'm sure even kids know the difference between "he's and his" and when to use which...

Anyhoo, I pushed through all of that, and found that deep down, I still love Percy Jackson, Jason Grace, Annabeth Chase, Leo Valdez, Frank Zhang, Piper McLean, Hazel Levesque, and even Nico di Angelo. And that even if it is a bit predictable, its still enjoyable, and that as you read you still grow with the characters. And every now and then, there might just be a little twist here and there.

Therefore, though it was touch and go for a bit, Heroes of Olympus still rocks. And I now await the release of "Heroes of Olympus - The Blood of Olympus".

And I'm looking forward to all the books to read for this year.