The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 4)

You know, the funniest thing about this book was that the climactic battle mentioned in the title made so little of an impression on me that I wasn't even really aware it had happened. That may also be because I was skim-reading this book and finished it in under three hours, so I can't really say I was paying super great attention. Having said that, even a skimmed read should have drawn my attention to a purportedly gigantic battle and maybe even made me slow down a bit.

You know what did make me slow down? Calypso. A bit of bizarre romance was kind of a nice break from the constant pulling back and forth between Annabeth and Percy. I know he's a dumb young boy and she's a girl who can't figure out how to communicate how she really feels, but I'm done with the tension. He could have had a lovely Ron/Hermoine thing going, and instead I just want to whack them.

Anyhow, on to the actual plot. So, Kronos, Mr. Evil, is looking for a new body and the architect Daedalus has something to do with it but I'm not really sure how. Seriously. They spend the whole book looking through the maze for Daedalus, but I really don't know why. Because he didn't seem to be that important in the grand scheme of anything. He gives Annabeth stuff, explains some things, and then does a complete 180 from the past 2,000 years because. . .insta-change of heart? What is it about Percy that seems to make people just kind of do what he wants and own up to these problems and issues they've dealt with for thousands of years? Even Clarisse doesn't hate him anymore. That's kind of obnoxious. But really, I may not have been paying that close of attention, but I just don't see why Daedalus had anything to do with. . .anything.

They also run into Pan and there's this incredibly patronizing speech basically about how much humans suck in destroying the earth and how it's our responsibility to fix it and some shit. Thanks, I wasn't already aware of that. To be fair, Percy doesn't seem to be aware of much (he really is an idiot -- and unaware of his idiocy).

The other thing that really, really rubbed me the wrong way was the chapter with the Sphinx. Riordan makes her look like Percy's elementary school choir teacher (so obviously she's supposed to represent teachers -- all teachers, apparently), who then forces Annabeth to take a high-stakes, multiple-choice test on a collection of facts, instead of asking a riddle. Annabeth refuses, pouting and saying that a test like this doesn't really test her thinking ability (which is ironic since she came in to the bout with the Sphinx planning on it asking her the same riddle it asked Oedipus and not really planning to play by fair rules in the first place. I think she's just whiny). Then, the Sphinx/teacher starts moaning on and on about how is she going to be "exemplary" without high test scores, how she can't possibly hope to measure thinking skills, how tests are so important, and whining about them breaking her machine -- now she'll have to grade them by hand! Damn, Rick Riordan. Were you the kid that thought every teacher hated them and put staples in their coffee? Because that was one of the most unkind portrayals of teachers I've ever come across.

Apparently, in Riordan's world, there's only a limited amount of types of teachers. You can have Chiron: drop everything, let you do anything, all-knowing wise father-figure extraordinaire. Mr. D.: hates all students and lives to torture them. Or the Sphinx: so completely obsessed with rankings and numbers she will sacrifice true learning and knowledge for prizes and rewards. Is this really what you think of us? I will flat-out admit it: I am a teacher, and yes, part of what I do is help students be prepared for the high-stakes testing that the state requires them to take. Do I do much more than that? You bet your life I do. Do I want these kids to take high-stakes tests that really don't tell us much? No. Do I think it's better for them to be prepared for them, however, even if I disagree with them? Absolutely. What good will it do anyone if I let them fail, or worse, help them to fail to advance my own personal agenda, which won't do any good for anyone and will just cause problems? So, thank you, Rick Riordan, for pinning high-stakes testing completely on teachers and making us out to be useless idiots. However, since you used the phrase "the boulder was grinded out of place," instead of "ground out of place," I can see that your education and the efforts of your teachers were largely wasted on you. Also, you should get a better editor. Perhaps a better editor could not only fix elementary school mistakes but could also untangle this great mess of what might once have been considered plot.

This book, like all the other Percy Jackson books, was torturous, unimaginative, and confused. It was both patronizing and stultifyingly dumbed-down, no doubt for the benefit of what Riordan imagines to be the small and underdeveloped brains of children, much as he cast the character of Tyson (probably my favorite character but ultimately stylized by Riordan as little more than an overly large mentally handicapped problem child -- a fact he gets conveniently around by making Tyson as endearing as a puppy dog and finally letting Percy get over his weird hang-up about his half-brother, although that doesn't mean that Percy ever truly realizes Tyson's potential as a person and not as a helpful assistant. Again, an unkind portrayal). I am, once more, disappointed. Thank goodness my expectations were abysmally low.

I think this is the 4th or 5th book in the series. Tess and I listened to it. I liked this one because of some of the more unknown myths that it used in telling the stories. Still, in general, more of the same - getting into fights with monsters, meddling gods, etc. This book wasn't as predictable as the others.

This was the first book of this amazing series I had come across. I was so engaged and immersed with the story and felt like I was right next to the characters. It was the fourth book, but I never felt like I had to read the previous ones to appreciate the story or the characters. And yet I was in love, so I went and bought the entire series (This was before The Heroes of Olympus has come out) and read all of them. I loved this entire series, but The Battle of the Labyrinth holds a special place in my heart.

I think this was the best book yet. I love the characters, I really like seeing the growth and development of Nico. I thought I might see more of Hades, but maybe in the last book.

The battles were epic, Percy finally got some closure and personal attention. Love is becoming such a huge part of all this I can only wonder how its going to end.

Through it all the blue food reigns supreme. Like a big inside joke they stopped explaining it.

This was also the first book that Percy didn't seem like a total dimwit. He seems like he's finally caught on and not everything was dumb luck.

How does Percy learn anything if he misses camp every year to go on adventures?

I liked this one much better then the last two. Good times.
Funny stuff. Lot's of death and destruction.