The Hidden Oracle
By Rick Riordan
Sophie (Grade 9)
3/5
The Hidden Oracle is book one of the series "Trials of Apollo" by Rick Riordan. This book is about the god Apollo, who was cast down from Olympus by Zeus to live as a human until his punishment was complete. Apollo is immediately ambushed by two gangly teens, where he meets Meg, who chases them off with rotting fruit. Apollo and Meg head towards Camp-Half-Blood in search of a way to return Apollo to a god. When they arrive, they find out that campers were disappearing into the woods and not returning. Apollo and Meg embark on a quest to find these missing campers but find an enemy far more sinister than they would've hoped.
I'm a big fan of Rick Riordan's other series, "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" and "Heroes of Olympus." So my expectations were pretty high for this book.
This book wasn't my favourite read. It felt a little repetitive to the other series and a bit monotone. Just like in the other books, they get to Camp-Half-Blood, discover that the camp's been having some problems, go on a quest, find some evil scheme to destroy them, defeat it, and fulfill some prophecy. Because of the repetition, I found this book very hard to finish.
I did like the haikus at the beginning of each chapter, though. It was a little strange at first, but once you read the chapter, it makes sense. I liked how the poem would act as a summary of the chapter without revealing any big secrets. It was a unique element to this book that I found interesting.
I also enjoyed the scenes with some of the characters from "Heroes of Olympus." Trials of Apollo is supposed to be a sort of follow-up series to HOO (Heroes of Olympus), and I liked seeing the old characters making a reappearance in this book.
I'd recommend this novel for ages 11-14. The language is PG and many of the jokes made throughout the story are directed to this age group.
I also recommend reading the other series before reading this one if you want to know what's going on and who some of the characters referenced are.
Happy reading!