“Percy Jackson and Chalice of the Gods,” Rick Riordan’s newest addition to the popular Percy Jackson series, does not live up to the expectations I had for it based on the previous books. I would not recommend this book because the plot feels underdeveloped, the humor is forced and the pacing makes what should be a quick read feel like forever.
The book is about Percy Jackson trying to get into New Rome College, but in order to do so he must get recommendations from three gods. Percy, Annabeth and Grover work together to retrieve the wine bearer Ganymede’s chalice before the next feast of the gods.
In “Chalice of the Gods,” the plot itself feels forced and doesn’t make much sense. It is one of those cases where drama was placed in an area that had already been explained and closed up before. The book gave the impression of being written for the sake of profiting off of the success of the Percy Jackson series, rather than focusing on developing a strong plot. Instead of being happy to be able to see more of the characters that are so beloved, this new addition to the series did the characters injustice.
Certain plot points were unexplained, leading to major pacing issues. Namely, only one recommendation is given to Percy in this book, which was never explained. It made me wonder when that quest would end so they could move on to the other recommendations, dulling the final third of the book.
The quest itself had parts that were overly shortened or lengthened. At one point, over a page was dedicated to the moral lesson that Percy had to learn in order to defeat a god. The same three or so points were repeated multiple times each with different phrasing, and the lead up was rough. This led to the quest, which is supposed to be the focus of the book, not feeling urgent, so it lacked a certain danger and flair that was present during the original series.
While the Percy Jackson series in its entirety is not targeted towards a high school audience, part of its charm is that a high school student can read it and still find it enjoyable and entertaining. This can be largely attributed to the humor, which feels natural and realistic to children their age (12-15). This was not accomplished in “Chalice of the Gods,” and much of the humor got lost in the overall messiness of the plot. The humor that does shine through the most are the lines that feel so forced that it makes the reader do a mental double-take.
“Chalice of the Gods” is not a book worth reading. The disorganization of the book gives it a dull and uninteresting tone. The other Percy Jackson books are still enjoyable, fun and humorous but this one isn’t on the same wavelength.
