The Heroes of Olympus Books in Order: Did Rick Riordan Nail The Series?

Do you know what’s better than Greek fictional stories? More Greek fictional stories.

And that’s what happened to me. As far as I can remember, Percy Jackson was the first book that I read in my early teens.

I was amazed and so obsessed with the facts that I had all the posters of the Greek gods and goddesses just in case someone was to quiz me like they do when they hear I like Nirvana.

Like I said, I’m in if it’s about more Greek mythologies, and this time, Uncle Rick decided to add more characters that I thought would be similar to the previous golden trio (Percy, Annabeth, and Grover), but the twist is – it’s nothing like that.

In fact, it is so unrecognizable that you either like or hate them, and there is no in-between. For me, though … yeah, I didn’t quite like Jason and Piper. You’re gonna know exactly where in this heavily opinionated review on the Heroes of Olympus books in order.

You’re welcome.

The Heroes of Olympus Books in Order – The Way You Should Read Them!

I like Greek mythology; I like any mythology as long as it is factual and entertaining. And who knows to combine these two better than Uncle Rick?

I don’t have the answer because I haven’t seen anyone top my charts.

Percy Jackson was my emotional support as I was growing up and almost acted as a place to escape from the real world.

The whole series gave me so much comfort. I found myself relating so much to the characters that, eventually, some of them became my virtual (fictional) best friends. I had no problem spending hours on them.

Percy, Annabeth, and Grover were the golden trio after Harry, Ron, and Hermione – and I was the third person best friend, watching and admiring them from afar like I always wanted to be a part of them.

Except they didn’t exist in real life, but they didn’t make me feel any less than the people existing in my real life. Yep, I’m pretty emotional about this one.

So naturally, I have had high expectations from Heroes of Olympus books as well. Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t leave the books for split seconds … the plots were this interesting. But I could relate to the character at a moderate to low level compared to the original trio.

For Jason, for example, I’m not as cool and know-it-all like him. As for Piper, I skipped most of her POVs (hey, we are all guilty of it) because I just couldn’t relate to her and thought she was stupid in most situations, unlike Annabeth.

Leo, though, is the only character so likable, even though you cannot relate to him on a personal level. Loved how the combination turned out, and they took care of every situation with such ease.

I loved the crossover. I loved their background stories and the overall character development. Rick Riordan nails character development.

At one point, Jason was all this jar of handsomeness and perfect warrior and everything, and the next thing you know, he’s the son of Zeus who has a lot of insecurities as well. He messes up from time to time, too.

Piper is not all perfect, too, although I’ll be honest here: I still don’t like her and would choose Annabeth over her. Loved Leo over everything.

The character development, the layer hidden behind the jolly nature of this guy, the badass moments where he shocked everyone with his actions – everything was great.

And for the rest of the opinions, there are a total of 5 books and a short diary of The Heroes of Olympus. I’m gonna break down the books in the series and do some character analysis for you at the end. To enjoy the best outcome, you need to read The Heroes of Olympus books in order. I prefer it–

• The Lost Hero (2011)
• The Son of Neptune (2011)
• The Mark of Athena (2012)
• The House of Hades (2013)
• The Blood of Olympus (2014)

This is gonna be a blast If you follow through the timeline.

Quick Note; I’ve also done a review on Percy Jackson and The Olympians Books as well (Yes, the whole series). Check out my article by following the link.

1. Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Hero: What I Thought of the Book

Did I mention the Romans? Yeah, we are diving into Roman Camp Half-blood now. This is the first book of The Heroes of Olympus book set, and we already know that Percy is missing because, almost for half of the book, I was looking for Percy, and he was nowhere to be seen.

But excuse me? Someone supposedly kidnapped Percy? Percy Jackson?

The badass of all time. We now have three new characters on the scene – Jason, Piper, and Leo. The son of Zeus (Jupiter), the daughter of Aphrodite, and the son of Hephaestus.

The story starts with Jason not remembering anything from his past life and waking up on the bus and reaching Camp Half-blood, where he meets Piper and Leo.

I didn’t and won’t like Jason in the first book because of his seriousness while still failing in the quest somehow – much opposed to what we saw in Percy. God, I miss Percy.

Jason has an eagle tattoo that somehow was very important to the plot, revealing that he was, in fact, the son of Zeus – the leader of the gods, as I like to say it. What happens when you finally find a rare breed that’s also dumb? Nurture and rule it.

Luckily, he got friends like Piper and Leo. Piper, the daughter of Aphrodite, is the prettiest princess alive, and the coolest thing is – she can charmspeak. So basically, the duo is unbeatable. Unless it is not. It’s probably because the one with the brains was Leo.

Leo, the son of Hephaestus, has a great background story and still somehow manages to remain humble, funny, and lighthearted, unlike Jason, who can’t even remember what day it is today for God’s sake but is all ready to take someone down in a heartbeat.

Okay, no hate to both. I think Jason and Leo were like the two halves of Percy, sort of. Leo is the funny and clumsy part, and Jason is the serious side of Percy times ten thousand. Again, God, I miss Percy.

They are assigned to a quest as soon as they reach the camp, and from there, they face challenges to unleash their inner strengths and powers to defeat the monsters and learn a lot of things along the way.

I did find a lot of things along the way, but I needed to learn about them. Hera, for instance, should find a job other than being a miserable crazy housewife.

Piper should cut off her splendid drama, acting like she’s so miserable for being so pretty and always on Jason’s side, no matter how unreasonable that boy is.

The only character that should get a positive reality check is Leo because why does this guy think he’s not enough? Boy, you have more brains than those two combined, so please know your worth.

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2. Son of Neptune

I cannot begin to tell you how much I missed Percy throughout the whole Heroes of Olympus series, and finally, he’s back and somehow … hotter?

I don’t know, but I always considered Percy as someone who is cute and witty but never handsome and funny, probably because I was reading from his point of view.

But this one is a read from a third-person perspective. So, I’m getting what everyone else gets to see. Honestly, I’m so glad I’m doing that.

Or maybe Percy just grew up all over the time, and he’s just really great through other people’s eyes. Rick knows that his readers are now growing up and are not 13 anymore, so the stories are now darker and more twisted.

For example – What happens in a typical Percy Jackson plot? They go on a quest, beat the bad guy, and return to the camp as a hero. But this time, the villain is ten times eviler than Kronos. Uncle Rick is really adapting well to the change in his audience, and I’m here for it.

I felt sad for Percy and Annabeth in this one because, honestly, after being gone for eight months, Percy finally thought it was time for them to settle down and have a peaceful life ahead.

But thanks to Hera, she’s always on time to ruin things. Also, I found it extremely cute how Percy was planning to save camp half-blood because he wanted to settle down with Annabeth there.

I had a few culture shocks over the whole series, and this opening was the starter. But as much as I have missed Percy and wanted those three musketeers to go back to their Roman camp, the first book really grew on me, and I now have started to miss Leo a lot, like A LOT.

The dialogue is pretty boring without him, and I miss how he added humor and charm everywhere he went. Sigh. Spoiler: I cannot wrap my head around the fact that Leo is Sammy. Good job, Uncle Rick.

And wait a minute … Percy Jackson is romantic? I actually cannot get used to the fact that Percy has grown up now and can guess if someone likes someone. He can actually pick up hints and know what’s going on.

Okay, all these aside, Rick likes love triangles, and they were crafted perfectly. I always knew something was going on between Jason and Piper, but the twist was Reyna.

Because I am not too invested in both of them, I really didn’t care that much, but the plot was well-written. Leo had a love triangle going on, and this was what I was looking for — Leo, Hazel, and Frank. Man, wish I could dive into the pages and help my guy, poor soul.

Also, shoutout to the creepiest villain – Octavian. You put Luke or Kronos to shame.

I forgot to mention that I was so in love with Nico that I could barely concentrate on others. I swear if I don’t see more of Nico in the later books, I’m gonna lose it.

Please, Uncle Rick, please.

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3. The Mark of Athena

Do you finally get to see the union of Percy and Annabeth? Do they finally meet each other in this book?

Also, there’s gonna be many, many spoilers in this book because I’m too excited to stop myself. You’ve been warned.

After years of separation making our hearts and souls ache, all the heroes are back together to form their own ‘Justice League’ or the Greek-Roman Empire peace council. Kidding.

Peace is far away from this book. This is a Rick Riordan book, which means this is awesome by default. As the story progresses, the Greeks start to make peace with the Romans until Octavian interferes its butt in, and the plan of union fails eventually.

That doesn’t scare away our heroes, and they are all set to make peace between the Greeks and the Romans and fight battles in between. In other words– the idea of miniature quests was a hit.

Honestly, these little solo or duo quests really help to understand the characters better. Almost as if you hated a character before Mark of Athena, you would get to know them better in this one and choose an extreme love or hate side, and trust me – there is no in-between.

My personal favorite was Annabeth’s solo quest, not because I felt like I was in my early teens again (maybe a bit) but because we already know how awesome she is.

This quest showed just how untouchable and cool she can be with her presence of mind. I really got a dive into her mind in this solo quest, and her mind was literally.

I was thinking of Percy Jackson the whole time. Can we blame you, girl?

If you missed Percabeth’s moments, you’ll not miss them anymore because we get a lot, a lot of it in this book. Some of them were even important for the plot. And not in a cringe kinda way, in a way that feels comforting. On the other hand, Jason and Piper, though … meh, have a good romance.

The plots in this one, were amazing and much better than the previous ones, considering things couldn’t get any better. Rick Riordan does an amazing job of keeping the old characters interesting and adding layers to them.

Percy and Jason finally found similar grounds of sadness – burnt out overachiever demi-god and Hazel was the sweetheart who mended things between friends. Also, when did Nico have a crush on Annabeth?

Interesting plots, and I sense darker ones just in line.

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4. Heroes of Olympus: The House of Hades

Now this one is an intense read. When I say intense, it’s intense. Like intense-intense. Ugh, I’m losing my mind here.

Because the last one ended on a cliffhanger but this one – started up with action. So Percy and Annabeth fall inside Tartarus and the moment they land, they look at each other and start plotting ways to survive and escape.

Even though that’s bare minimum, I think they really shine as a team and as a couple.

Also, honestly, the characters in the Tartarus were interesting and Rick Riordan literally put everything he could to make the villains interesting; you’ll meet evil characters from the first book and that’s when the nostalgia hits.

But in the other team, they didn’t have Percy and Annabeth anymore. That impacted the team both positively and negatively in a sense that –

A. They are lacking a leader now and they have no one to guide them. Hence, absolute chaos.

B. They get to shine individually now.

To be honest, they nailed the latter one.

That gave birth to so many beautiful plots at their end. Jason stepped away from his all-perfect images and started to deteriorate from the edges, which I know is not a good thing to want for your best characters but it did bring out all the human sides of him.

Piper learned a lot along the way and honestly, she’s not a self-conscious pick-me anymore, I think she is starting to grow on me.

I have some news about Leo though – Leo and Calypso! I freaking knew it! The moment Leo was absent from some parts I knew he was cooking somewhere out there and it had to be calypso, they had unmatchable chemistry! Gotta talk about Frank, The dude really stepped up his game being an acting leader and as a promising soldier.

Onto the best part – the greatest plot twists of all time – Nico D’Angelo, the man.

I don’t care what anyone says but I totally buy this shit because my delusional predictions came true. Nico, the hottest demigod, son of Hades, the star of this book, the one this book is named after, has a crush on Percy Jackson and he does all of this out of love for Percy Jackson.

Call my gay radar an extremely precise one or Nico a clear suspect. In both cases, I always knew that something was going on. I definitely don’t buy that crush he had on Annabeth; it was just a distraction. C’mon, the kid talks to ghosts and skeletons.

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5. Heroes of Olympus: The Blood of Olympus

This book is a prime example of how you should always expect less so that you would be surprised more. I don’t mean this is a bad book, but this is a pretty bad last book. Or maybe I’m just too sad about the fact that I won’t see my fictional best friends again.

This is the last book of The Heroes of Olympus, and you are hoping for the perfect end to each of the characters … but that’s far from the scenario because of the arrangement of POVs.

There are way too many unnecessary POVs from characters that readers wouldn’t want to see right now. We almost forget about Percy’s POVs because it is so few and ignored the whole time. Wish I could get more of Percy, Jason, Hazel, and Nico.

What I liked and disliked about this book is the plot did not involve important POVs, but since there were way too many of Nico and Reyna, I learned to enjoy and like it. It’s okay and fine. I like their character development.

Unlike most of the readers, I actually loved Nico in the last book. I didn’t really mind his too much involvement in this book and started to love it in the end.

Zeus had the funniest reactions to actions; I know where Jason gets this attitude from. He’s nice but really gets pissed at Percy for some reason.

Also, the combat really didn’t feel like combat anymore. They’re short and kind of forced at this point. And we again have Leo to the rescue to save us from both the boredom less boring combat and to save Olympus like he saves his friends all the time (massive spoilers)–

Leo dies.

But it would be more flavorful if some of us didn’t have the brains to predict and pick up hints, and we WEREN’T convinced of Leo being “Gone” and doubting Leo’s plan to cheat death.

I sensed it the moment Leo was announced dead. Uncle Rick should’ve kept that a secret until the very end – although I understand if he wanted the last book not to end in a cliffhanger. I’m honestly surprised that some of you couldn’t believe Leo would be back. It’s Leo, c’mon.

Overall, the last few pages felt a bit rushed, and that’s what made the fans upset a bit, at least I was. But I’m more upset over the fact that this might be the last time I’m reading and having ‘first-time’ feelings all over again. Maybe it was the sadness after all.

It is a great one, though. I can do anything to read it for the first time again.

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Do I Recommend The Heroes of Olympus Series by Rick Riordan?

One hundred percent. Love it to its very core.

Percy Jackson is my all-time number one, and The Heroes of Olympus books fits right after the other books. You will get to meet so many awesome (well, not a first, but they’ll grow on you eventually) characters, and they are gonna be your life for the next few days.

Rick Riordan is amazing and very much known for his amazing writing style and POVs and, most importantly, the way all his characters grow on people even though they are in the negative rule. All of these are just very emotionally uplifting.

If you love indulging in a deep web of modern mythology, you are just going to love this one. Loved each and every character, even though the last book was a bit disoriented, but I’ll take it.