The Demigod Diaries
by Rick Riordan
Date Read: 10/02/2012
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★
This book is such a nice addition to the Heroes of Olympus series. I love that you get a little taste of everything, and little bit of something new.
The first book is a diary from Luke Castellan. Well, if you've read the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, you know all about Luke. This story is from when he initially ran away from home and met Thalia and Annabeth. We've heard about this story a lot, so it was fun to see it all happen. Especially since we haven't gotten a whole lot of Thalia. I enjoyed it. It also kind of lets you glimpse the reasonings why Luke made some of the decisions that he did.
The next story is about Percy and Annabeth. I loved it because there is a big hole from between when they kissed to when Percy went missing. So we never got to see them actually dating. So this story happens between those two points. Heremes of course needs Percy's help finding his caduceus. So on their one month anniversary (which you'll have to read how that goes), they have to go fight a monster to help Hermes. Percy is as always one of my favorite characters. He is so funny. I love it. Great story.
The third story is about Leo (from the Heroes of Olympus series). He is alsmost as funny as Percy. I really enjoyed this story, and I actually was happy I read this before reading The Mark of Athena, becuse it got me re-introduced to Jason, Piper and Leo, who I haven't read about since The Lost Hero. This story happens between the Lost Hero and The Mark of Athena. It is while Leo is building the Argo II. Leo was so funny. One of my favorite lines: "Leo hated singing. He cleared his throat and started warbling the first thing that came into his head - something he'd watched online while he worked on the Argo II. After a few lines, Candy hissed, 'That's not the Bacchanalian Jingle! That is the theme sing for
Psych!' "
The final story is actually written by Rick Riordan's son, Haley. Riordan originally made up the Percy Jackson story as a bedtime story for Haley. He created an ADHD and dyslexic hero that Haley could relate to. He wrote it down and the rest is history. Now at 16, Haley is wanting to become a writer too and wrote "The Son of Magic" that was included in this book. It is not about any of the characters we know and love. It introduces us to a character that had chosen and fought on Kronos' side in the war. It shows us what happened to one of the kids after the war. And it introduces us to another character who was interesting. But most importantly, it helped us understand who controls the mist, and why monsters can smell demigods. I really enjoyed this story. To tell you the truth, I never would have guessed that this story was not written by Rick Riordan himself. He has definitely passed his author genes to his son. I actually look forward to reading more from Haley Riordan in the future. Maybe when his dad stops writing in Percy's world, Haley will pick it up.
There were also some fun activities included in the book. Things like word scrambles, word searches. There was even an interview of George and Martha(the snakes on Hermes' caduceus). There were also pictures included of each of the main characters. It was neat in some aspects - you got to really invision how Riordan has invisioned his characters. But then it also reminded me that Annabeth is BLOND, not brunette (but I always picture her brunette since I saw the movie before reading the books and she was brunette in the movie). But I really enjoyed this. Anyone who has read and loves the Percy Jackson books should definitely pick this up. It's a short and fast read, but definitely worth it.
