<<For the first time in four thousand years, I sang my own faults.>>
-The Hidden Oracle, Rick Riordan
Synopsis
How do you punish an immortal?
By making him human.
After angering his father Zeus, the god Apollo is cast down from Olympus. Weak and disoriented, he lands in New York City as a regular teenage boy. Now, without his godly powers, the four-thousand-year-old deity must learn to survive in the modern world until he can somehow find a way to regain Zeus's favour.
But Apollo has many enemies—gods, monsters and mortals who would love to see the former Olympian permanently destroyed. Apollo needs help, and he can think of only one place to go... an enclave of modern demigods known as Camp Half-Blood.
Opinion
⭐5/5
Author: Rick Riordan
Serie: The Trials of Apollo
Pages: 375
Publishing house: Disney-Hyperion
ISBN-13: 9781484732748
Apollo, feels like he is falling, and, he isn’t wrong. Suddenly, he is surrounded by garbage. He doesn’t remember a lot of thing, just the angry face of Zeus, the god of thunder, the ruling king of skies, his father, and the words:
YOUR FAULT. YOUR PUNISHMENT.
He feels weak, pathetic, un-godly, he is a mortal. And, he hates it. How can it be his fault? He didn’t even remember what was the thing Zeus blame him.
When a girl of twelve years saved him of a couple of brats, he knows his life is a mess. And, then he has to serve her. With Percy Jackson’s help they arrived to Camp Half-Blood, but, nothing is easy at it seems. Some campers have been missing in the woods for the last weeks, and, the Oracle of Delphi hasn’t come back after the war of Gaea.
Soon, Apollo gets involved in whatever is happening to the woods of Camp Half-Blood. And, an old enemy gets back from Tartarus.
<<”Well, it’s either find this funny or freak out. My dad, the god Apollo, is a fifteen-year old-”
“Sixteen” I corrected. “Let’s go with sixteen”
“A sixteen-year old mortal, lying in a cot in my cabin and with all my healing arts - which I got from you - I still can’t figure out how to fix you.”>>
-The Hidden Oracle, Rick Riordan.
Even, if this story manage many of the characters we have known from the last books, this book is totally different from the previous books of Rick Riordan. The main character isn’t a teenage boy who doesn’t understand what is going on, it is a god, that has no godly power anymore, who doesn’t know what is going on.
The fact that Apollo remembers, somehow, a couple of things of what his life was before he became mortal is more than other characters have known at the beginning of their stories.
In this book, we get to know the other side of Apollo.
We know Apollo as the god of sun, a cheerful, outgoing and handsome god in the previous book. But, in this book he is just a sixteen-year old teenage boy. He has acne and flab. He is miserable, narcissistic, spoiled and a cry baby for his previous life. He is on the lowest point of his life, and he is confused. His life as a god, seems like a dream, a blur. Apollo’s mortal body blushes just to remember, his mortal body wouldn’t do what he has done.
Rick Riordan change our perspective about the gods on this book, because, thanks to Apollo’s perspective we get to know why they do the things they do, and, why do they don’t intervene in mortal business. It change our perspective of the gods as parents, friends, siblings and, as beings.
The Hidden Oracle is a book that is slow, the first chapters you don’t what is going on, what is the quest of Apollo. And even, when they reach Camp Half-Blood something feels wrong and without and Oracle, demigods can’t go on quests. And, Apollo, who is the god of prophecy is just as blind as Quiron. And the more, you read the book, you know that you’re getting into the plot. And, once you get into the plot of the book, you know that something bigger is going to happen. The fact that Rick gives you hints through all the book, just keeps you wanting to read more. And, the fact Apollo is a god with narcissistic thoughts and a lot of background makes you want to read more.
And, even if you say that you already know how the story is going to end, the truth is that is wrong. There is a plot twist at the end of the book, that you could not believe it, I didn’t. At that end, makes me wanting to read more.
The Hidden Oracle is a book with a lot of history from the main character, Apollo. A book, that will make you laugh with Apollo’s narcissistic thoughts. A book, that makes you want to read more about Apollo’s story, and how he is going to go back been a god.
-Fer 🌻
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