The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan

Book Name: The Lost Hero

Author/s: Rick Riordan
Language English
Publisher, year: Hyperion Books for Children
Page total: 557
Date Read: October 21st 2010
Genre/s: Middle Grade, Mythology, Fantasy, Fiction
Synopsis/Description:

Jason has a problem. He doesn’t remember anything before waking up on a school bus holding hands with a girl. Apparently he has a girlfriend named Piper. His best friend is a kid named Leo, and they’re all students in the Wilderness School, a boarding school for “bad kids”, as Leo puts it. What he did to end up here, Jason has no idea — except that everything seems very wrong.

Piper has a secret. Her father, a famous actor, has been missing for three days, and her vivid nightmares reveal that he’s in terrible danger. Now her boyfriend doesn’t recognize her, and when a freak storm and strange creatures attack during a school field trip, she, Jason, and Leo are whisked away to someplace called Camp Half-Blood. What is going on?

Leo has a way with tools. His new cabin at Camp Half-Blood is filled with them. Seriously, the place beats Wilderness School hands down, with its weapons training, monsters, and fine-looking girls. What’s troubling is the curse everyone keeps talking about, and that a camper’s gone missing. Weirdest of all, his bunkmates insist they are all—including Leo—related to a god.
First line of Book:Even before he got electrocuted, Jason was having a rotten day.

Review: I have to admit that I, as many of other people, I'm sure, wasn't sure if i'd like this new story with new demigods that were NOT Percy.

However, after reading the first chapters, I was very happy to know he would be a part of it, even though he'd not be one of the main characters anymore.

But what i didn't expect was to like this new set of characters as much as the ones from PJ- this is written from Piper, Jason, and Leo's POVs in the 3rd person, which gives us some distance but still allows us to really know them. I really liked Jason, Piper and Leo, and the other characters too- and imagine what I felt when I found some old characters in here!! I was thrilled!

Jason is a likable hero, who, even though knows nothing of his past (and future), keeps going and is a great leader.
Piper, who I really admired and liked - apart from a minor thing that kept bugging me in the beginning about her dream - was a great heroine, even after all that happened to her throughout the story.
And Leo, who thinks he's nothing but is very wrong.

Riordan manages to create a new twist on the demigod world, which I loved. And it still has his trademark humour, though it's written in a more serious tone.
Though the plot was somewhat predictable - what would happen next, who the villain was, who would betray them, the ending, all of these were easily perceived - and repetitive, overall, it was very enjoyable and now, a few days after reading this, I still can't take the characters out of my head, thinking of what will happen next, in THE SON OF NEPTUNE, which will be released in the fall of 2011.

I can't wait.
You won't either.
You'll want to know how it'll turn out in the end, how it will all be resolved.
Rating: 5/5

Quotes from book:

"Can we just call them storm spirits?” Leo asked. “Venti makes them sound like evil espresso drinks."

"No, no,” Leo said. “Rainbows. Very macho."

"Destroy it?' Leo was appalled. 'You've got a life-size bronze dragon, and you want to destroy it?'
'It breathes fire,' Nyssa explained. 'It's deadly and out of control.'
'But it's a dragon!"