Book Review: The Battle of the Labyrinth

Title: The Battle of the Labryinth
Author: Rick Riordan

Challenges: 100+ Reading Challenge, 101 Fantasy Reading Challenge, YA Reading Challenge, Once Upon a Time, Hogwarts Reading Challenge,

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I tore through this book, reading it in one sitting in one night, staying up way too late to finish. After reading a handful of books I was not overly pleased with, I wanted a book I knew I would enjoy. And enjoy it I did.  The Battle of the Labyrinth may be my favorite Percy Jackson installment.  I'm not sure if this is because this fourth book in the series was actually better than the first three, or if my prior so-so reading elevated my pleasure in this entertaining story.

The book opens, as the others do, with a bang.  Percy attends orientation for a new school. Well, he shows up anyway, but before he can even get comfortable, he is attacked by monsters - cheerleaders actually. From there, Percy et. al. are off on another adventure to thwart the rise of Kronos. This time they head into Daedelus's labyrinth which sprawls beneath the known world, twisting and turning in endless confusion and spattered with mystery and monsters.  And they are in a race against Luke to reach Daedelus's workshop to find the key to navigating the labyrinth.

The plot is intense and fast-paced.  For 361 pages, I was enthralled, wondering what would happen next. And while the other three books all geeked me up with Greek mythology, I found this one even more interesting as the stories of Daedelus and Icarus and other new-to-the-story figures weave their way through the novel.

If you have not yet started the Percy Jackson series, you should.


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