Book Review
Prannay K Prit
The Trials of Apollo Series
Author: Rick Riordan
Book 1: The Hidden Oracle
Book 2: The Dark Prophecy
Book 3: The Burning Maze
Book 4: The Tyrant’s Tomb
Book 5: The Tower of Nero
This series is the continuation of The Heroes of Olympus, hence I highly recommend that you finish reading the previous series. This entire series centres on the god Apollo and Meg, a daughter of Demeter. Apollo has been turned into a mortal by Zeus as punishment for unwillingly helping in the catastrophe that occurred in the Heroes of Olympus. On top of that he has to be the servant of a 12 year old girl. The sources of prophecy are not working and as the God of prophecy (among many other things) it is up to him to wrest control of them from his ancient enemy, Python -who has directly taken control of Delphi, the most ancient oracle- like he had already done millennia ago. The only problem was that he was not a God this time. Thus he has to first save the other sites of prophecy proving himself to Zeus and subsequently, slowly achieving his powers back. This series is hilarious in the sense that we see Apollo struggling to do everything as a mortal and never ceasing to complain every step of the way.
If you have read the 2 prequels then I hardly need to recommend this series to you. You will not be disappointed by this series. Similarly to the 2 previous series, a teenager will enjoy this series the most, but if you have already read both Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus before the age of 13, have no inhibition in reading this series also. This series has an underlying moral. It tells us that we have to be grateful to what we have and not misuse it. When Apollo was stripped of his powers, he felt helpless, and that was all thanks to his own doing. Similarly we must be thankful for whatever we have. We never know what might happen tomorrow but everything that we do today affects it. As I stated in my previous review on Heroes of Olympus, the fact that Rick Riordan can convey life lessons while in no way diminishing the quality and value of his writing truly makes him an excellent and exceptional writer.