The Lost Hero (audio) by Rick Riordian

 Jason wakes up on a bus holding the hand of a pretty girl with no memory of who he is or how he got there.  After a monster attack, Jason, Piper (the girl), and Leo (a friend) are whisked away to Camp Half Blood and there they find out about their parentage and are sent on a quest to save Hera and stop something worse than the Titans from rising from the earth.

Phew.  I was afraid after The Red Pyramid that I was off of Rick Riordian.  But The Lost Hero has saved me from that.  Because I really enjoyed it.  As much as I did the Percy Jackson series.  Partly, I think, because the characters are more familiar and I don't have to learn a whole bunch of new gods or monsters or how the world works.  There's something to be said for familiarity.  But this is a fresh approach to the Greek gods and demigods.  It centers around three new demigods, Piper, Jason, and Leo and alternates between their voices in the third person.  It was a good way of getting to know all three and getting to see everything that was happening.  My only problem is that sometimes there is just too much mystery.  Just say it already and quit jerking me around.  But that's par for the course in a Riordian book.  Still I liked the book and was eager to find out what happens next.  I'm curious about Annabeth and Percy and I hope the next book deals with their side of the story.  The cliffhanger at the end has been eagerly awaiting the next book.

Joshua Swanson is the reader and overall he did a great job doing all three characters.  His reading was a bit stilted in place and I don't know if that is his fault or the fault of the text.  It just sounded unnatural in places.  It wasn't anything that detracted from the story as a whole, but it was something that I noticed.  I like these books on audio, in general because they are exciting and absorbing.

16 hours, 48 minutes

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