Reader Rayna

Month: April 2020

  • The Bookie Trials Royal Weekender Wrap-Up

    Hello, friends! I come to you today to talk about my adventures through the land of the Queendom, and what I managed to accomplish this weekend with my fellow Bards~

    If you’d like to see what I wanted to read, as well as the Badges of Honor I set out to achieve, then check out my TBR post here!

    First, let us discuss the Badges of Honor I managed to achieve during the Royal Weekender!

    These were the badges that I, as a bard, could win if I completed each of these tasks. I was close to getting all eight, but I only ended up with seven. Here are the ones that I won, and with what.

    • Oath Maker – I shared my TBR with you lovely folks a few days before the Royal Weekender took place, thus securing this badge for myself!
    • Power Surge – I participated in a two hour long sprint on Saturday, from 8AM-10AM EST. I managed to read 78 pages during that time, which was fantastic!
    • Tome Champion – I managed to complete Percy Jackson: The Titan’s Curse on midnight on the dot Sunday night/Monday morning. It was quite good!

    As you can see, the only badge I did not win in this was the Tournament Ready badge, as I was unable to attend the tournaments due to 1) my forgetfulness, and 2) my laptop crapping the bed because of a slug.

    Yes. A slug got into my laptop and now I have to get a new part to fix it. So. That happened and I didn’t read all the books I wanted to, but I did finish reading the one book that was my primary goal, so, yay me!

    And the Bard specific badges I won:

    • Superior Inspiration – Percy Jackson is all about Greek mythological retellings, so yay!
    • Song of Joy – For my song, I chose Crazy for Love by Mondays, which is a cute song perfect for closing your eyes and just having a blast dancing to.
    • Soft Heart – The cinnamon roll character in the Percy Jackson series, I find, is Grover. He seems like such a cinnamon roll, and I want to protect him.
    • Simple Soul – All of the covers of the books are illustrated, and so, this simply fit!

    So, as you might have already be able to tell, I completed only Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Titan’s Curse.

    You can check out my complete review here, but in short, I really enjoyed it! I think this is my favorite of the series so far, and I’m really excited to continue reading and see what happens next in the exciting life Percy is having.

    The books I didn’t get to were the first six volumes of My Hero Academia, which is a manga series (an anime!) by Kohei Hoshitori. Due to the unforeseen circumstance with my laptop, that took a chunk of my time out from reading, but I am still glad I was able to finish at least the one book for the event – which was the primary goal, anyway!

    Overall, this was a fun event, and I’m definitely excited for the full Bookie Trials event in July. I can’t wait!

    Did you participate in the trials? What team were you on and how did you do with your goals? Do you think you’ll be participating in the bigger event later this year? Let me know in the comments!

  • Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Titan’s Curse | Book Review

    Title: The Titan’s Curse
    Series: Percy Jackson & the Olympians #3
    Author: Rick Riordan
    Publisher: Disney Hyperion
    Publish Date: May 5, 2007
    Genre: Middle Grade – Fantasy, Mythology
    Pages: 312
    Format: Kindle eBook

    IT’S NOT EVERYDAY YOU FIND YOURSELF IN COMBAT WITH A HALF-LION, HALF-HUMAN.

    But when you’re the son of a Greek god, it happens. And now my friend Annabeth is missing, a goddess is in chains and only five half-blood heroes can join the quest to defeat the doomsday monster.

    Oh, and guess what? The Oracle has predicted that not all of us will survive…

    As this is the third book in the series, there might be spoilers!

    Oh man, this series is SO fun to read! Why didn’t I read these before? Haha, anyway, I found myself enjoying this third installment quite a bit. It was just as fast-paced and action-packed as the first two, but I found myself seeing Percy and his friends starting to mature as they get older with each book, starting to grow into their young teenage years. So not only do they have to face the monsters, gods, and other such things in their environment, but they also are starting to really come into their own and to discover more about themselves.

    This particular book follows Percy, Thalia, and two Hunters who are usually hunting with the goddess Artemis: Bianca and Zöe, in their journey to not only save Artemis, but also Annabeth.

    It felt like Percy was dealing with a lot more inner turmoil and emotions in this one than the last two. Being left alone or cast out, depending on where he was, he definitely seemed lonely a lot of the time. But through that, there was a determination to help his friend Annabeth, to save her from wherever fate might have taken her.

    Thalia – who used to be a tree thanks to her father, Zeus, who changed her into one so as to save her life – is navigating her own feelings on her father, as well as her own situation and whether or not she fits into a prophecy told about a child of the three big gods betraying them. Though we see everything through Percy’s eyes, I still felt a sense of anger and frustration of Thalia at her decisions, and how she makes an ultimate decision so as to not be the one spoken of in the prophecy – which I thought was very mature for her to decide.

    Bianca, and her younger brother, Nico, were such a mystery in the book, but when the reveal happened as to who they were, I had guessed it just before I read it. It was still shocking, but oh man, I wonder if and how they’ll return and how the situation could play out in the future. Although, I’m sad about Bianca, but also I found her to be very selfish in leaving her brother behind to join the Hunters, but… Ah, I don’t know what else I can say on that because of what happened to her in the desert.

    And then Zöe. Oh man, I thought she was very mature for her “age,” though, to be fair, she was thousands of years old at that point. I didn’t quite understand the hostility between her and Thalia, though it was explained eventually later on, but I still thought that maybe they could have gotten along more. However, I did almost cry at the end with what happened to her because I really grew to really like her, and I wanted to know even more about her past, but I don’t think we’ll get any more than what we got.

    And of course there were new villains to face in this story – a manticore, as well as a god who helped the Titans long, long ago – and it was interesting to see how it played out! I actually really liked the villains, in terms of villainry, and I’m interested to see if the betrayer god will make another appearance later on.

    Overall, the plot was fast-paced, and it included a couple of twists I wasn’t expecting, as well as a few that I was. I found this particular installment to be really good, and probably my favorite of the series so far. There was a lot more at stake in this book, and I can’t wait to see what comes next for Percy and the crew because I’m sure, especially after that ending, that there’s going to be a lot more trouble for the young teens to go through.

    ★★★★☆