Percy Jackson and the Battle of the Labyrinth – Rick Riordan

As a child I was pretty obsessed with Greek Mythology so this year I decided to rekindle that love as an adult by joining the Read-A-Myth Reading Challenge, this is now my third book of the challenge. My mom and brother have both read all of the books from the series, and both couldn’t recommend them any higher my only surprise is it took me this long to get round to them. Percy Jackson and the Battle of the Labyrinth is the fourth instalment of Rick Riordan’s mythological YA series, and was released in 2008 after this there is only one more instalment to go! As I may have mentioned before I managed to get my boyfriend hooked on these books, so much so that he went out and bought/devoured them all before me! however it does mean that I can now steal….I mean borrow them off him instead of going to the library.

Percy’s summer starts on a bad note when he manages to blow the music room of his new school up after fighting off the not so ordinary cheerleading squad. Which forces him to flee to Camp Half-Blood a lot early than expected but all is not calm there either! There is a new mysterious sword master Quintus with his pet hell-hound Mrs O’Leary, while there is also the happy return of Percy’s half-brother Tyson to camp. An unusual friendship has been formed between Annabeth and Clarisse as they work together to figure out what Luke and Kronos’s next move will be. And their worst fears are realised when during a camp challenge Annabeth and Percy stumble upon an a secret entrance in the woods….as secret entrance to the labyrinth. If Luke can figure out a way through the labyrinth he will have a way to march his whole army straight into the centre of Camp Half-Blood bypassing the magical boundary. So Percy and his friends must set out on another quest, this time to see if they can find the creator of the labyrinth Daedalus before Luke can.

I might have been slightly disappointed with Percy Jackson and the Titan’s Curse the third instalment, this instalment though has completely made up for that and brought this series back up to its normal high level. I have always been a particular fan of the labyrinth story and so this book did tap into an existing interest, but the book went a step further by exploring the character of the creator of the labyrinth Daedalus. A character I didn’t know much about so I found myself learning quite a bit too. I also loved the mystery surrounding the character of Quintus, where did he come from? How did he get a hell-hound? And who is he really? This wasn’t the only mystery in this book there was also the continuing mystery surrounding where the God of nature Pan, another character I am fascinated by. Not only was my interest piqued by the characters and the mystery of the book, on top of that was the action packed quest element of the book too!!

All in all this was another great fantasy adventure for all the family. If you are young or old I recommend this series, even more so if you are also taking part in the Read-A-Myth challenge.