Rick Riordan

Lester Papadopoulos was once the glorious god Apollo, Now he's an awkward (mortal) teenager, stuck on earth without his powers. The way out? A series of scary and dangerous trials, of course. With two particularly scary and dangerous trials already under his belt, Lester must now journey to the Labyrinth - a burning maze with an Oracle at its centre, who may just hold the key to a return to godly glory. But The Labyrinth holds a far more deadly threat - the third Roman emperor, part of a group of three, all bent on death and destruction. The mortal and immortal worlds won't be safe whilst they live, and only Lester and his demigod friends have the power, bravery (and luck) to stop them . . .

The Burning Maze (The Trials of Apollo, Book 3)

Pia 

He expression began to crumble. "Where's Jason?"

Did I just scream? Yes I fucking did! Now he is coming now that Jason is dead!? Now he is finally meeting his two friends again but one of them is dead are you kidding me Rick!? How much do you hate us?

"RESIST!" Herophile knelt at my side. "Apollo, you must resist!" I could not speak through the pain. Otherwise I would have told her Resist. Gosh, thanks for that profound wisdom! You must be an Oracle or something!

Very few people look as good in tights as Spider-Man.

I watched as Caligula plucked out his spear, then drove it again into Jason's back, removing any last hope that our friend might still be alive.

Jason held my gaze a fraction of a second too long

I was never a big fan of him but this makes me cry 

As the former praetor and the emperor charged past each other, Jason met my eyes across the ruined throne room. His expression told me his plan with perfect clarity. Like me, he had decided that Piper McLean would not die tonight. For some reason, he had decided that I must live to0.

Now this is the character development I was waiting for

"Let my friends go," I said. “All of them. Then you can have me." The emperor's eyes gleamed like a strix's. “And if I don't?" I summoned my courage, and issued a threat I never could have imagined in my previous four thousand years of life. "Ill kill myself."

Oh she so is no one can tell me otherwise

most hurtful of all, her realization that the supposed love of her life, Jason Grace, Was not someone she wanted to be with romantically. 

I wondered again what was behind their breakup. People change, Piper had said. Full points for vagueness, girl, but I wanted the dirt.

Once the girls had left, I turned to confront Jason Grace, one son of Zeus/]upiter to another. “All right," I said. "What did the Sibyl realy tell you"

Okay good so at least he knows his friend survived 

When I casually mentioned that Leo was alive and well and presently on a mission to Cam Jupiter, all the electrical outlets in the room sparked. Jason looked at Piper, stunned.

If you've ever held your hand out the window of the sun Maserati as it speeds across the sky, and felt the force of a thousand-mile-an-hour wind shear threatening to rip your immortal fingers off, I'm sure you can relate.

“Please don't play with that," Piper asked gently. "And, yes, we broke up."

Okay so now you can go and tell Jason thank you very much 

"LEO?" Piper grabbed my arms so hard I feared she would leave bruises. "He's alive?"

The praetorian guard lowered his head. "Hail, Caesar!"

 "Also, don't let a strix scratch you. Itll paralyze you!" By way of demonstration, I fell over sideways.

The formerly glorious god Apollo, cast down to earth in punishment by Zeus, is now an awkward mortal teenager named Lester Papadopoulos. In order to regain his place on Mount Olympus, Lester must restore five Oracles that have gone dark. But he has to achieve this impossible task without having any godly powers and while being duty-bound to a confounding young daughter of Demeter named Meg. Thanks a lot, Dad. With the help of some demigod friends, Lester managed to survive his first two trials, one at Camp Half-Blood, and one in Indianapolis, where Meg received the Dark Prophecy. The words she uttered while seated on the Throne of Memory revealed that an evil triumvirate of Roman emperors plans to attack Camp Jupiter. While Leo flies ahead on Festus to warn the Roman camp, Lester and Meg must go through the Labyrinth to find the third emperor--and an Oracle who speaks in word puzzles--somewhere in the American Southwest. There is one glimmer of hope in the gloom-filled prophecy: The cloven guide alone the way does know. They will have a satyr companion, and Meg knows just who to call upon. . . .

Odiiii

Emily Akerman

Ellie M.

** spoiler alert **
           Jason wasn't my favorite but his death broke me.

Christine

Sandrin

** spoiler alert **
           i never thought the day would come when i would give 1 star to a Rick Riordan book, but here i am now, and im salty.

i was sooo disappointed with this book, mainly because of the inclusion of Piper and Jason that felt like some last minute plot filler. The whole break up thing was completely glossed over. It couldve been used in a separate series where we wouldve had the opportunity to observe the cracks in their relationship while they fight monsters (Piper's struggles with her identity would have made for an awesome character ark), and dont even get me started on Jason. The way he was used here felt cheap and sad(like the author just wanted to get rid of him). 

in conclusion, i dont think i will be reading the rest of the books.

britt

Jade Lexi

nina 

i honestly have no idea what to say rn ,,,,

Katelyn Payne 

Honestly this book was AMAZING!! The thing that I really like about Rick Riordans writing is that it’s so real. He understands that he can’t have everyone live in a story because that’s not how things work in real life. That being said I cried 1 or 2 times about a few deaths. The thing with his books is that they’re quite fast paced he never spends too long on one thing. 

I thought the ending was nice as well. It didn’t end the way I wanted it to but I thought it was a nice ending to give you a sort of cliffhanger vibe from it. So I’m defiantly so excited for the 4th book.

Kimberly Burgess 

** spoiler alert **
           This would be a 5 star read if not for the soul crushing death that occurred 75% of the way through 😭😭😭

Nessa Luna

I would like to not have feelings anymore, thank you.

Something in me died while reading this, I've never cried this way before. Rick is insane.

Yalin Tsikun

Anna

** spoiler alert **
           Enfin je commence à apprécier cette saga. Après 2 tomes que je situe entre « j’ai pas aimé » et « j’ai détesté », ce troisième tome me redonne de l’espoir.

La mort de Jason c’est…terrible. Je le savais déjà (spoil sans faire exprès), tout comme la rupture avec Piper, et vraiment ça me brise le cœur. Ce n’est pas un personnage auquel je suis terriblement attaché, comme Percy/Annabeth/Groover, mais franchement ça fait mal de se dire qu’il est mort. Il était le personnage principal (l’un d’eux) des « Héros de L’Olympe » donc même si je n’étais pas attachée particulièrement beaucoup, j’ai suivi les aventures qu’il a vécu. Et le fait qu’il meurt là, entouré juste de Piper et pas dans une grande guerre ou en se battant pour le Camp Jupiter c’est vraiment trop…

Les 4 étoiles que je donne à ce tome c’est pour lui, même si dans mon esprit le livre vaut 3.5 étoiles.

sophia n

and they ask you how you are, and you just have to say that you're fine, when you're not really fine, but you just can't get into it because they would never understand

jess

Hey folks! It's that time of year when I write a really incoherent screamy review about Rick Riordan's books and I get told to chill, but I have no chill when it comes to Rick Riordan. And believe me when I say that this time, Rick Riordan is not fucking around. 

Don't get me wrong - for a lot of the book, we've got the same fun adventure romp that many readers have come to love about Rick's books, even if it is somewhat formulaic. We've got Apollo in all his melodrama, with soooooooo many references to pop culture and history, for both modern teenagers AND their parents. So many. SO. MANY. Apollo, as always, is such a horrifying delight to read, because he's a disaster, and he's so conceited, but it's all very endearing. That being said, I believe that Apollo's a lot more sympathetic than he was in the first or second books - he's learned some humility. His earlier adventures have stuck with him, and it was great to see so much character development. 

It was really exciting seeing Grover again, and seeing how much he's matured. I'm so proud of him. And the Hedge family - I really grew into loving the three of them in this book, even though I didn't really pay them a lot of heed in the Heroes of Olympus. We also got some old villains, like Medea, which was really cool to see. 

Spoilers from this point on. 

(view spoiler)[I was so excited for Piper and Jason, because I've really come to love them, even though when I first read The Lost Hero, I was not a fan of any of them. I was twelve. In the eight years in between, I have come to love each and every member of the Seven, including Leo Valdez, even if he can be really annoying. Especially since reading The House of Hades, I've really come to realize how much I love everything about Piper and Jason - I'm not a huge Jasiper fan, but I know now I love them in The Lost Hero, and all the books in between. 

So the first shock of the book: Jasiper broke up. I was stunned, because this contradicted everything we had seen from the ending of the Heroes of Olympus, with everyone neatly paired off and getting a happily-ever-after. We all thought that they were going to get a happily-ever-after. But I thought that this was a really mature look on first love. While Percy and Annabeth are proof that first love can be your true love - as it was for Rick himself - Piper and Jason proves that things aren't always that cut and dry. Leo and Calypso, in The Dark Prophecy, talked about how they needed to find time to figure out how to be a couple away from travelling and danger. Piper and Jason figured that they weren't a good couple, but they were still friends, and that was okay. 

Even seeing both Piper and Jason was so bittersweet, and it hurt that Piper's life was turned upside down. I admire how incredibly brave she was, dealing with so much in such a short time - even before the events of this book. And when we finally see Jason, we see him just the way as he's aways been - quiet, dedicated, loyal. The same qualities that I pegged him as 'boring' when I first met him in the end made me love him. And it was good to see that Jason, at least, was living as normal of a life that demigods can. 

I have to admit that I had, up until this recent reread and this book, that I considered Trials of Apollo to be the most juvenile of Rick's series. But it's not: the silliness hides the brutality and tragedy that has always been inherent in Greek mythology, and, well, the Camp Half-Blood-verse as a whole. This book really brought it into the forefront. On the first page of The Lightning Thief, Percy says, "Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, scary ways." And sure, we've seen some pretty brutal deaths over the years. But Rick doesn't kill main characters. If he does, he brings them back. Or so we thought. 

Because Jason. Jason Grace dies and even though I am in denial, it is made incredibly clear that this is final. There is no Piper charmspeaking him to life. No potion. No godly magic. We see him get stabbed, twice. We see his body. We see his coffin. In all Rick Riordan's books, this is the most final and brutal death, because it's so goddamn real. I think that a lot of other deaths in the series had hope and fantasy behind them: Beckendorf and Silena reunited in Elysium, Zoe Nightshade turning into a constellation, Bianca di Angelo showing up in ghost form - and even so, these were minor characters. They were sad, but you only knew them for a book or so. You don't spend FIVE FUCKING BOOKS with them only to see them end up in a coffin. 

Jason's death is one of the hardest depictions of loss I've ever seen in a book, because it's so frank and human. It takes on a view of death that I've seen in books for older readers. I think it was very reminiscent of One Particular Death in one of Leigh Bardugo's books. He doesn't get a romantic monologue of dying like Luke or Silena did. It was quick and brutal. And realizing it was just as - Jason's corpse tumbling onto the beach. Even though he finished his Grand Quest, he wasn't safe, because demigods aren't safe - and neither are humans, for that matter. It's a very straightforward look at mortality. Sometimes people die gracelessly (I'M SORRY, I'M SO FUCKING SORRY). Sometimes people die too early. Sometimes people die when no one expected them to. I have criticized Rick for not killing anyone in his books, that this lowers the stakes. I think we all didn't expect the stakes to be raised so quickly. Like Caligula says: it's not a game. And this book shows it. 

I also have to commend Rick for this depiction of grief, because it's so fucking raw. Jason's death didn't really hit me until Leo flew in and asked, "Where's Jason," and I screamed because I realized Jason and Leo never got to say goodbye to each other. Hell, Jason never knew that Leo was ALIVE. Like, excuse me, I'm going to go cry under a rock now. Not to mention Leo going, "I can't even think right now? Is that normal? Just forgetting how to think?" That also hit me so hard because it was so real and human. And I think, if this book had been out when my dad passed away, this would have been the book I'd turn to for solace, because it covers all these complex and hard feelings about death and loss that you don't fully realize until someone you care about dies. Apollo found those feelings. 

Jason Grace died as he lived, for the most part: selflessly and heroically (though, notably, it wasn't a brick that killed him). And even though his death fucking hurts, I think it's given everyone a lot more fire to defeat the emperors. I have a lot of complicated feelings right now, because I only just finished the book and this is the worst fictional death I've gone through, like, ever. But I really do commend Rick Riordan on how he handled everything, even if I'm going to be shrieking into the next century. 

As for the end: Bellona's daughter. On the one hand, this means we'll see Reyna again, one of my favourite characters. On the other, I don't believe we got Leo's bad news from Camp Jupiter? Also, I'm really really really really not wanting this Reyna/Apollo thing to happen, so I have a lot of mixed feelings? I just. Have. A lot of feelings about this book. I have no chill. I'm sorry. (hide spoiler)]

So to sum it all up, in one non-spoilery sentence: Rick Riordan does it again - a fun adventurous romp through mythology, history, Roman emperors, and a bit of emotional turmoil thrown in, just for funsies. I'm really anticipating the next book.

Sandra Tammaru

I love the fact how Apollo is getting more empathetic and more hilarious and witty at the same time. This book had moments of despair and tragedy but still managed to make me smile and inspire strength. Womderfully written as always!

Steph L 

Some of you might by wondering why this book is only three stars. Well, to start, I loved the characters in this novel. I believe Rick Riordan has a fantastic way of writing characters. Writing was another element I really loved about this book. Rick Riordan has a fantastic way of writing his characters and his stories. I put this book down for a while, and that might be why I didn’t like the story or the pace. The Burning Maze had some story elements I loved, and so I thought didn’t go anywhere. The pace of this book was also up and down for me.

mighty dragon 

icb the best book of the entire series has to include so many deaths...

This took me forever to read, but it was a really good book, i just couldn't get stuck in.

The Burning Maze (The Trials of Apollo, Book 3)

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