The Lost Hero

CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS!!!!!!

The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan

I have recently read a book called The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan which has many complex and difficult things about friendship, power, and loyalty. There are 3 main characters, Jason Grace, Leo Valdez, and Piper McLean. There all just demigods trying to save the meanest Goddess of Olympus before she’s eaten by a giant who will use her power to rise and destroy the Earth-which is also complicated for Piper’s sake.

Piper McLean-daughter of famous actor Tristan McLean and Aphrodite the goddess of love-has a lot of difficulties she has to choose through. . She holds a terrible secret-the secret that’s making her decide from the life and death of her friends and family.  If she chooses family, then her friends die. If she chooses her friends, then her father dies. She’s close to her friends but really loves her dad since he’s all the family he has left.  And because it’s her secret, she can’t really tell anyone, also since the secret has promised if she did then her father would be killed before she could do anything. She doesn’t want to betray her friends, but she also can’t let her father die.

That’s also not the only problem she’s facing. She’s also facing a bit of power-problems. When she first goes to Camp Half-Blood she meet’s the counselor for the Aphrodite cabin-Drew-who she immediately doesn’t like because Drew is described to describe her as a ‘week-old burrito that had just been pulled out of a Dumpster’ and because Drew was trying to get together with Jason-Piper’s crush. As Piper gets to know Drew she feels like she thinks everything is a game and doesn’t really know how to run a cabin since she feels that every Aphrodite child should look gorgeous and people should adore them. When she gets back from the Quest of trying to save the world, Piper challenges Drew to who gets to run the cabin, though she doesn’t really want to, if she gets to be the Cabin Leader than she’ll be given attention which she wouldn’t like. 

Jason Grace’s-son of Zeus-problems are difficult, probably not as difficult at Piper’s. One day he wakes up in the school bus-having no memories only others seeming to have memories of him. Later he figures out that Hera-the goddess that has been captured-has been the one who’s taken his memories. He has to decide between able to get back his memories and being able to walk away from the quest or staying with Piper and Leo-his only friends-help with the quest, and not having his memories back immediately but in due time. Jason wants his memories back since he hates not knowing anything-not even his favorite food, color, or age. But when he wakes up at the school bus, and then spends some time with Piper and Leo he feels like he shouldn’t leave them. He also feels like if he gets his memories back he might start hating Piper, Leo, and the other demigods in Camp Half-Blood, and that’s something he doesn’t want to do-he wants to stick by his friends’ sides, even if it means he doesn’t get his memories, which he will not like. 

Leo Valdez’s-the son of Hephaestus and Esperanza Valdez- is also the one with problems he has to face. First off, he blames himself for the death of his mother though he knows that Mother Earth-Gaia-was setting him up, getting him to worry about her mother’s lock up in her shop, and accidently setting it on fire. He knows it was Gaia who set it up-trying to lower his confidence-but he also blames himself. Fire’s making Leo’s life difficult since he’s been told that a child of Hephaestus is really bad luck for the people around him, but he feels like he’s already done so much damage, his own family-his aunt really-thinks he’s crazy and wouldn’t take him in when he lost his mother-doesn’t want anything to do with him. All of Leo’s life he’s been neglected, the fire thing really isn’t helping him trying to keep things okay.

The Lost Hero the heroes face many problems-emotionally and physically. Though they really are a pain to them, and rather difficult, these problems help Piper, Jason, and Leo become wiser in more ways than one. Piper learns that Aphrodite Children are really about being loving and spreading beauty throughout the world. Jason learned things like friendship is worth more than the memories he’ll get back in due time. And Leo learned that not every child with fire powers is bad, people have just misjudged them based off other accidents happening. Heroes can face many problems like these 3 did, but in most cases they’re good lesson-learners, but also,  those lesson-learners can have a twist to them…

Dead Beautiful

CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!!!!

I have recently finished reading the book Dead Beautiful by Yvonne Woon. It’s about how a girl named Renee Winters, a Californian, clumsy girl, who finds her parents in a nearby forest, dead. It seems to confuse Renee because she finds it nearly impossible for both of them having to die at the same time, with coins surrounding them, and cloths shoved in their mouths, especially since they’re supposed to be at work, which is about an hour away from where their bodies are. After the funeral, Renee’s grandfather-who Renee is certain of that her parents hated-comes into Renee’s life, he lets her mourn for a few days, then tells her that she’s gonna go attend Gottfried Academy, an ‘elite boarding school’ in Maine. He sends her there because he feels like she will be safer there since like Renee, he believes that her parents’ death is no accident.  Renee is reluctant to go, but ends up going, she soon finds out what the school has very dangerous secrets. 

There’s one secret that the school refuses to talk about, and tries really hard to not let the students there find out. But Renee is determined to find out, even if it means she can get killed like the other students who have died there. Students like Cassandra Millet and Benjamin Gallow have been in on the secret, now they’re dead, even Renee’s best friend Eleanor, ends up dying-but she wasn’t on the secret, her brother way though…every year the school has a test, to see who is ‘smart and bright’ enough to be able to be on The Board Of Monitors, a very fancy way to describe the ‘hall monitors’ basically. But there’s also one catch with being on that, they’re in on the secret too.  Renee tries to get the secret by getting Eleanor to ask her brother since basically, he would tell her anything, but it doesn’t seem to be enough, all Eleanor can get out that makes Renee really suspicious is that, the students who’ve died, Ben and Cassandra and Eleanor, have died the exact way Renee’s parents have-with coins and cloths. 

Renee ends up reading about Gottfried’s past, all that she can find which is an utter shock to her, is that, there were others students who have died, and they’ve died the same way, cloths and coins, in the beginning of the story, when Renee found her parents, and she questioned the police about it, they had told her that the reason they had died, was because they both had heart attacks. Renee clearly did not believe it, how could both of her parents have heart attacks at the same time? They may have been close but they weren’t that close that they could have planned their own deaths at the same time. Now, since it says the other students have died there the same way, Renee believes they’re hiding something big, how could all those young kids have a heart attack when they were perfectly healthy?

 

But to uncover that secret, Renee needs to uncover the secret of her boyfriend’s identify, Dante Berlin. When Dante-star student, high grades, and everything-first meets Renee, Eleanor is there, describing ‘the guy who sits next to her during the Fall Assembly’ to be Dante. She says that Dante never talks to anyone, and in the Assembly, to Eleanor’s shock, Dante talks to Renee. Soon, Renee finds herself attracted to Dante, but not in the-oh he’s so cute kinda way, more like, there’s something very familiar about him…I can’t put my finger on it though…kinda way. They end up hanging out, Renee also feels more alive near him, as Dante feels to her-though he probably won’t admit it. Through classes like Latin, they become closer and closer. (I know, it doesn’t seem important-oh she gets a romantic relationship with the mysterious guy of the school, yeah big deal, so what? Well it is so hold up, please?) When Renee reads about the Gottfried past she finds out a few things…things that sorta match up Dante’s mysterious personality. Cold Skin all the time, afraid of underground, won’t kiss anyone. (Dante does this, yes, to make it clear.) As Renee reads she finds the words: Basium Mortis which is basically Latin for having your soul taken from you, or kiss of death. ‘I turned the page. The pictures were disturbing. They showed children sucking the souls out of other children. Their faces looked hungry and bestial, driven by animal cravings. Though strangely, I thought, it looked like they were kissing. The realization struck me, and I sat up and gasped. Kissing. Dante refused to kiss me on the lips. This must be why. A kiss could kill me.’ Soon, Renee connects it…and she finds out Dante is one of the undead children, one of the children from the age of 21 and below who have died and their soul has left their body, now the body wands the Earth looking for their soul, and in order for him to live without his soul, Renee finds out, that he has to suck out the souls of other people or he’ll die. (Wow, must be a bummer o.o having to find out your boyfriend could kill you anytime he wanted, and that he’s dead…) But that’s not all…Renee also uncovers that she holds Dante’s lost soul, and he could one kiss, Renee could die, Dante could live again till he dies again for good.

Finding that out, Renee learns that the other students, Ben, Eleanor, her parents, they’ve all died by Basium Mortis, the kiss of death, by the undead children who want to live. She has uncovered the secret of Gottfried...but at what cost? Finding that out, one of the BOM (Board of Monitors) people-Gideon-wants to kill her, for some reason he has hated her since the beginning of the school. He tries to,  but Dante gets in the way, he ends up killing Dante but Renee saves him, giving him the kiss of life (yes, bad pun…I know). Renee lives though; Dante kisses her back and gives her back her, his…their soul, him becoming the undead again, and Gideon getting away.

Through this long story plot, Renee learns a few things, for one that, sometimes you have to look in your past to understand that future. When they were alive, Renee’s parents used to make her tell them back old theories that they told her. She had to look back at that to figure out all the connections between Dante, the BOM, the deaths of children, the death of her parents, and the death of her friend. Looking back Renee accepted that her boyfriend was the undead that people in her school where the undead and the BOM were just people that made sure the undead stayed in line. (Yes, the undead have requirements, read the book, it’ll explain more.) Looking back…Renee learned to understand everything that has happened.

Never-More!

MAY CONTAIN SOME SPOILERS!

Never-More by James Patterson

I have recently finished Never-More by James Patterson, the last book in the Maximum Ride Series (Great series, in my opinion-you should read!). It’s about how Maximum Ride (Or Max) must save the world; she’s been told that the end of the world and it’s up to her to save it, that, or perish along with the ones destined to die-some mutants can only live. Max could probably save the world or some of it anyway, but there are many things stopping her. One thing, which is a big problem, Max must decide if she wants to be with either Dylan-new flock member, considered Max’s ‘perfect other half’- or Fang-Quiet independent guy who Max has known all her life. Now, I know what you’re thinking (Yes, I’m a mind reader, and I possibly know what you’re thinking) Why is romance so big when the world is about to end?  

But, think of it this way, Max can save the world, but she needs someone with her, she would have her other flock members-Iggy, Nudge, or Gazzy-with her to fight, but she feels they’re too young. (Also, it’s mentioned in the others books-so it might be really important, no?) So, Max needs to choose between the one made for her-Dylan-or the one she thinks is made for her really-Fang, before the whole world ends, or they all die. But there are problems with that. For one, Fang is gone; he thought that it was best for him to leave since he’s been told that he can danger Max and the whole Flock, leaving Max heart-broken. But, he comes back-but that’s bad too, since Max has already had complications with him leaving, so coming back, she just won’t be able to take it-especially since she’s gotten closer to Dylan.  (Way to go Fang…)And for another, Fang is destined to die-the School scientists-where they were trapped and experimented on since they’re kids with wings-want to kill Fang, because while doing an experiment, they found out that Fang has something in his DNA that could lead the world ending, or something more disastrous. 

Okay, stop right there! I may know what you’re thinking, Fang has something that could kill the world, and Max has to save the world from being killed, doesn’t that mean that Fang has to be killed or something? Well, no, Fang does not have to die! (Kill him; there will be hell to pay-he’s a good person!) Fang may hold something that could kill, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how to use it (he doesn’t, he only knows) also, Fang isn’t bad; it’s the scientists that want to test with his DNA. And because of that, Fang is being hunted down by Erasers-half men, half wolf, super vicious-and other people, insisting that he must die before anything bad can happen.

Okay, let’s go to Dylan, enough about Fang. Firstly, Dylan was made for Max, he was programmed to love her and her only, and he’d do anything for her (Sweet, right?). He follows her anywhere, protects her, and tells her things that the School tells him. (No, he’s not working for the School, the School wants Dylan to be with Max, as much as he does-it’s part of the whole Saving-the-world Game.) Now, remember when anything meant anything, and how Dylan had contact with the School? Well, Dylan has been given a mission from them-something he could possibly benefit from-killing Fang. Dylan knows as well as Max Fang could kill the world if people got his hands on him, so he’s like, killing Fang won’t be so bad, the world is being saved, right? Also, killing Fang gives Dylan an increase of winning Max’s heart. (Just so you know, Max kinda likes Dylan but not as much as she loves Fang so…) So, Dylan teams up a bit with the School when the major battle is taking place-and tries to kill Fang-only being stopped by Max’s pleas and fleeing from the scene, leaving a shocked Max, Flock, and injured everyone, crying in pain. 

Max, now, has made her choice, though she’s kinda liked Dylan; he crossed the line trying to hurt Fang, plus, she feels more comfortable with Fang-she’s known him all her life, Dylan only for about 2 months, feeling the pressure of him wanting to be with her.

And now it’s the end. Max and Fang must save the world, though, they also need to keep Fang safe, which they kinda do by going to some Island which was designed to save them, and keep them safe while the world is destroyed. Fang and the Flock want to relax on the island, but Max feels like she doesn’t feel herself…if she doesn’t save the world, she feels she was designed to the save the world, relaxing isn’t gonna cut it for her. So she has to take action. Which she does when the sky to go on fire and fall down upon them, now Max has to do something, Fang choosing to help her while the others on the island go into a cave that’s so superior it can protect them from all of it. This is around the time where Dylan comes back. Though, Max hates it, it’s Dylan who tells them about the sky, who gets some to safety, and it’s Dylan who still wants to help Max, even though he knows she will never choose hm.  But, sadly, Max cannot save herself from the fiery-sky, she and Fang try, by flying but they end up failing, burning together…dying…

Or so it seems. Dylan comes back, saving Max and Fang from death, from death of the burning sky, just as Max is saying (she’s talking to the reader): ‘before I go, even if you’ve rolled your eyes at every bit of cheesy advise I pulled out my butt when the flocked needed some pep in their patooties these last few years, know that I mean this last little nugget from the bottom of my not-really-cynical little freak heart: Save your world. Love it, protect it, and respect it, and don’t let haters represent it. Don’t leave the saying to anyone else, ever, because exhibit A-why, hello there!-it’s way too much for one person. And if you want to skip out on the responsibility train, my whole life-and death-will have been in vain. It’s yours. It’s all yours for the taking! You’re not going to waste it now, are you?’ Patterson is basically telling the reader, that you shouldn’t let ‘bad people’ take over the world, and experiment on it which could be bad for the world; you have to help change it, before everything happens to what happened to the Maximum Ride people. And basically that whole romance thing he put in there, he put that in there to show, that you can’t help save the world alone, it’s too much, just like Max said, people need others to survive…or everything just crumbles…so it’s time to step up…help save the world…before it’s too late...before no one can fly anymore.

She's So Dead To Us

(CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!)

I have recently finished reading a book called She’s so dead to us by Kieran Scott. It’s about how a girl named Ally Ryan, who has been away from her home in Orchid Hill for years, has finally come back. Ally used to be one of the popular kids, also known “Cresties”, but that had changed when she had left her home years ago, because her father had made a financial mistake for many families, and in shame, had left Orchard Hill. But, Ally won’t let her past affect her future and present, but her former friends-who now hate her for not saying goodbye or anything when she was forced to leave-won’t let her forget. A bigger problem is, Jake Graydon, a new Crestie that had moved when Ally left so knows nothing about her, loves Ally, and Ally likes him back. Why is this a problem? Because, Ally’s a Norm-people who aren’t popular Cresties, just ‘normal’ people-and according to the Cresties, a norm and a Crestie cannot be together-ever.  

Ally may be fighting things external, but she also has internal problems. For one, is she really gonna let go of her past with her loving friends, family, and awesome life because of one little thing? Sure, her family made things really complicated finically, he lost a lot of families’ money, made some lose their homes, cars, and other belongings, but, before all that, Ally had awesome friends, went to dinners with them with them, hung out with them all the time, and basically everything she wanted. Is she really ready to give that up? Ally wants to go back to that time, she wants to have a life where her friends love her, not hate her for something her dad did. But, on the other hand, Ally doesn’t want to go back to her old life, she rather be with her ‘norm’ friends, Annie Johnson and David Drake, then her former now-sour friends, Shannon, Todd and Trevor, Hammond, Chloe, and Faith,  (Mostly Shannon and Faith though) who blame her for almost everything, Faith’s new ‘dark side’ showing more, the loss of money for all of them except Chloe, Trevor and Todd needing to move in with their grandparents, and basically everything else that goes wrong with their lives-which is sorta messed up. Ally’s father may have caused some problems with the Cresties, but that doesn’t really mean they can take it out on Ally, which is basically why Ally can’t decide who to be friends with.  

Another internal problem Ally has is, weather to be with Jake or not.  Ally’s a norm. Jake’s a Crestie. A huge difference in Orchard Hill. Cresties date Cresties; Norms date a norm, which is how it’s been for them, like forever.  But, according to other people, Ally can change that, why? Because “somehow that girl always gets what she wants.” Ally may like Jake, but she can’t really be with him. His best friends are the people who hate her, and with no offense to Jake, but people really think he wants to be with Ally…for other reasons.  “It’s Jake Graydon. Pretty soon he’s going to have worked his way through the entire school and he’ll have to make a second round.” They think he’s basically a player, and some people think Ally is too good, though she may not seem like it, what some people say about her, sometimes to get Ally. But, Ally is strong in some ways, she can stand up to snobby Cresties, stand up to people who make fun of her, and some rumors, there’s a possibility she could go out with Jake, despite everything. 

Love. Rumors. Fights with former friends. Ally has a lot on her plate to fix and deal with now that she’s back home. Personally, I think Ally is sorta handling this right. She goes on head on with the fights; she won’t easily back down from a fight. And she won’t give up no matter how much the Cresties want her down. Some people would run from a fight with the most popular people, some people would back down, knowing that they can’t win, but Ally doesn’t see that, she knows she can ‘win’ a fight even if she tries. Little does she know things are gonna get more complicated when Shannon, her former best friend steps up to fight her…at a party and using one thing that Ally fears the most, her father.

 

Her father was the one thing that most people knew that broke Ally. Why? Because Ally loved her father, he was close to her. He built her a basketball court for her. He made other people feel jealous, for her father had been there the most for her, while others had not been. That was till he had changed her life. He thought he could win more money and ‘gambled’ it, but lost it. Then forced his family to leave, in shame and without a word to their friends. Then, later in her life, he left her and Ally’s mother, alone to take care of themselves with very little money. He’d vanished…that was until Shannon had found him. she had video him working in a little deli, trying to earn money, and then at her party she had played it…in front of Ally, to show that she knew how to break her down, to show her that she was still playing the revenge card, and she will not give up till she’s down in the ground, possibly even lower…

Poor Ally finds out things, for one thing, her worst enemies know where her invisible father is, and another, Jake, who she was dating knew, and didn’t bother to tell her. Trust broken. Hearts broken. Wills broken. Everything shattered for her and her mother.

 

It’s sad, but Ally teaches us some things. Like, not everything is what they seem. She thought Jake would be honest to her, that he wasn’t like the others Cresties, like he was an actual human with feelings, but knowing where her father had been…that shattered everything, she saw the ‘truth’ that not everything is what they seem. But, other things are just exactly what they seem. Ally knew Shannon, who may not be mentioned a lot, but is still one of the main problems for Ally. Ally knew Shannon would do almost everything she could to bring her down…maybe Ally shouldn’t have come back to Orchard Hill. Maybe she should have stayed hidden in her little home in Maryland…home, for Ally, is where the hate is…where everything is revealed on how her friends feel about her leaving…how even your former best friends can hurt you.