✨ Helena ✨'s Reviews > The Hidden Oracle

Don’t you just love it when a new spin-off series in a previously established world lives up to the nostalgia of your childhood? Because I do! I clearly remember coming across a small paperback, titled The Lightning Thief, sold on a small table of books at age 9. I will never forget that moment as it rekindled my love of mythology, which happened to be the tales that I was raised on. Percy Jackson was a fundamental aspect of my childhood, which makes my enjoyment of The Hidden Oracle that much sweeter.

Meet Apollo, the Sun God:


This is the first instalment in a new series centred around Apollo, who has just been cast out of Olympus, after having incurred Zeus’ wrath. Apollo finds himself in a dustbin with the appearance of a pimply and flabby teenager, named Lester Papadopoulos. To make matters worse, he no longer has any of his godly strength or powers. Needless to say, he’s in big trouble! :O Luckily, however, he manages to maintain his brilliant sense of humour (even though he’s being completely serious, it comes across as humour to the reader). “Zeus needed someone to blame, so of course he’d picked the handsomest, most talented, most popular god in the pantheon: me.” He’s so funny, snide, vain, selfish, and arrogant.

Rick Riordan has convincingly portrayed Apollo as a fallen god who needs to learn what it means to be human…that their children aren’t simply replaceable mortals to resolve the gods’ troubles through the completion of quests. Out of all of Riordan’s protagonists, Apollo is nearly matched with Percy Jackson as my favourite narrator. I loved seeing Camp Half-Blood through the eyes of one of the gods, especially one who fathered quite a number of history’s demigods. This book also gave Apollo plenty of opportunities for self-reflection. “I was the worst of the gods, the most guilt-ridden and unfocussed. I couldn’t commit myself to one lover. I couldn’t even choose what to be the god of. I kept shifting from one skill to another – distracted and dissatisfied.”

Despite his asinine behaviour the majority of the time, he does change over the course of the novel, thus becoming a better version of himself. “Then it occurred to me how many times I had asked for sacrifices, how many heroes I had sent to their deaths. Had they been any less noble and courageous than these (view spoiler)[dryads (hide spoiler)]? Yet I had felt no remorse when I sent them off on deadly tasks. I had used them and discarded them, laid waste to their lives to build my own glory. I was no less of a monster than (view spoiler)[Nero (hide spoiler)].” I loved seeing Apollo as a protective father, wanting to do right by his demigod offspring. He also took great pride in their achievements, whether it be archery, medicine, or music.

The best part of this novel, of course, are the cameos from our favourite characters, including Percy Jackson(view spoiler)[, Chiron, Rachel Dare, Will Solace, Nico di Angelo, Leo Valdez, and Calypso (hide spoiler)]! PSA: If you haven’t read The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series and The Heroes of Olympus series to their completion, you will get spoiled, whilst reading this. However, if you have no intention of picking those up (which would be depriving yourself of great mythological retellings!), you do not need to read Riordan’s previous series in order to understand and adore this novel.

For anyone who worried that Rick Riordan’s characters were becoming carbon copies of one another, (considering that he’s written a Greek mythology series, a Roman mythology series, an Egyptian mythology series, as well as a Norse mythology series), you needn’t fear. I truly believe that this is his funniest book yet, and one of the best books that he’s written in quite some time! Bravo, Uncle Rick! I can’t wait to see Apollo again on his next adventure! :D