Book Talk: Mark of Athena- Spoiler Alert

 Sorry for the delayed posting on Mark of Athena. I got it on Wednesday and finished it on Thursday, but I hadn't gotten around to doing a review.
Title: Mark of Athena
Series: Heroes of Olympus (Sequel Series to Percy Jackson and the Olympians)
Author: Rick Riordan
Volume: 3
Rating: 9.5/10

Summary (be warned of minor spoilers): These books are actually kind of hard to summarize, as there are a lot of smaller adventures on the way, but bear with me.
The Greek and Roman demigods meet in this book. The giant, flying trireme with Festus's head lands over the Roman city (it is not allowed to actually land, because that would break the rules). We get Annabeth and Percy's reunion, which was wonderful (it involves a judo throw). Then everything goes downhill. The boat fires on New Rome, and the Greek demigods and Roman demigods plunge quickly into all-out fighting. The seven: Percy, Annabeth, Jason, Piper, Leo, Frank and Hazel, make it to the trireme and depart in rather a hurry from the battle below. In quick sucession, we find out that there are some not-nice spirits taking over people's bodies- Leo, Percy and Jason for a short while until Piper charmspeaks them out, and undergo several, smaller adventures on their journey- much like the heroes on the original Argo. The rest can be summed up as a race-against-the-clock flight to Rome. Nico's been imprisoned by giants, putting himself into a coma that will allow him to last a week sealed in an airtight container. So they are now racing to Rome to save Nico, oh-and the world.

Annabeth has something to deal with on her own, as well, something that may heal the huge, hostile rift between her mother and Rome. Unfortunately, every child of Athena to try has failed. She must face one of her greatest fears to right an ancient wrong. She must find the statue of Athena that formerly stood in the Parthenon, which was stolen by the Romans to break Athenian spirit.

Response (in which the spoilers are more extreme): Look, I'm getting better at not spoiling everything in my summaries! When I finished my response was "Fall of 2013?! So Long!". Talk about a cliffhanger ending (or rather a they-stopped-hanging-off-the-ledge-and-are-now-plunging-toward-the-most-evil-place-ever-what-is-going-to-happen-now ending). I think everyone on Argo 2 is feeling some sort of guilt and a truckload of fear. The next book might be a little darker- I mean, if we see inside Tartatus, which almost drove Nico insane, and he's the son of the ruler of the Underworld.

This book was a overall really good. It only lost 0.5 because I missed reading in Percy's first-person point of view. There were a lot of little split-off-into-teams tasks, which we grasped a mix of dynamics with the characters. Neither Percy nor Jason really feel comfortable in a leadership capacity, Leo feels like a seventh wheel, Annabeth is really worried about her mothers quest/curse, there's the whole Frank-Hazel-Leo thing and meanwhile everything seems to be trying to kill our heros (and capture two as sacrifices).

I'm kind of anxious for the next book. A lot. The original 7 has been separated and now we've got Nico in a role we've not seen him in before-leader, and Percy and Annabeth have quite the battle of their own to look forward to.

This review is awful. I'll come back and edit it later.