Author: Rick Riordan
Category: YA, Adventure
Pages: 361
Publication Date: March 6th, 2008
Percy Jackson returns with the 4th installment, The Battle of the Labyrinth. Percy and gang must travel through Daedalus’s Labyrinth to stop Kronos’ army from using it to bypass Camp Half-Blood’s protective barriers and attack.
This time the story is not really different from the other books. Something happens to the camp, Percy must travel to stop the bad guys, they run into multiple gods, goddesses and monsters along the way. Since we have seen this formula 3 times so far it can feel a little over used. There are a few secrets here and there but in this book there is nothing shocking revealed. It feels like the author had a couple of little things that he wanted to add before the final book. The chapters with Calypso particularly felt like nothing more than filler.
Percy, Annabeth, Tyson, and Grover are the team for this book and there doesn’t seem a reason to have Tyson or Grover there. They are both great characters but they feel like they are there just to be comedic reliefs. Grover has his story line kinda wrapped up for him but the event feels rushed and anti-climatic. Tyson really has no reason to be there. He just shows up and says, “Hey guys I am coming too!” He is a great character but had no place on this adventure.
This is a filler leading up to the big ending in the next book. While its not the best, if you’re this far into the series you should read if only to get ready for the last book.
Greg’s Thoughts
I didn’t remember much about this book from the last time I read it and now I realize why. This book is probably the weakest out of the series for me. The adventure is not very exciting, nothing really new is revealed and the characters are all the same. I like Nico and he gets better in the next book and the next series. Other than that I am excited to wrap this series up with The Last Olympian! See you guys there!
Rating:
Dani’s 2¢
The only thing I can really say I liked about this book was Annabeth getting snarky with another female character over Percy. The culmination of Grover’s search for Pan was incredibly disappointing for me. The end of that storyline makes sense but it just felt like Riordan was tying up a loose thread before ending the series.
In short, I was not crazy about this book and am really hoping that the finale of the series is a great improvement over it’s lead-up.
Rating:
thefantasynerdsdotcom.wordpress.com 
I know I liked this series at the time but it’s incredibly forgettable for me and I’ve read it about 3 times thinking I never finished it. I’m on the 4th book of the Heroes of Olympus series and it is a much stronger series in general.
LikeLike
This is my first time to read any of Rick Riordan’s work and I think that had a read it 10-15 years ago, I would have liked it a lot more. Makes sense as that would be the age range these books are geared toward. :)
I understand there is a new series about Apollo and I actually am interested in reading that because I liked how Apollo was portrayed a few books ago. His translation from Ancient Greece to modern day was the most interesting to me.
LikeLike
theres spoilers in trial of apollo for the heroes of olympus, but if you’re ok with that it’s been received really well so far
LikeLike