The Burning Maze Book Review 2025/07/02

This book was an important book in the series for me. When I was reading Heroes of Olympus, I was browsing some Rick Riordan book facts. There, I saw that Jason Grace would die later. I was curious to see how, so I read through the series in a frenzy. Then I realized that he didn’t die in the Heroes of Olympus series. So I bought this series, and now finally got to see him perish. (That’s a bit ominous.) Anyways, this book was really good, and I got to see Apollo becoming more human, sympathetic, and really getting used to being human. Maybe in the future, he’ll actually stay as a human. Which would be quite amusing. It was actually sad to see Jason die. I thought he would make one great sacrifice, saving everyone from danger, killing himself in the process. Instead, he was stabbed twice in the back with a spear from Caligula. Ouch. That was underwhelming, and it is described briefly from the book, because the center of attention is Apollo. I feel like Rick Riordan fans would enjoy it more if the death of Jason Grace was more explained, more remorseful, and more traumatic for Piper. Maybe if Jason was saying Piper’s name before he died. Like this:

Stab.

”Aah! Piper…”

”Jason! No!”

Stab.

”NO!”

That with more detail. (Hopefully)

Anyways, I was also sad to see Crest the pandos die. I really liked the character development and I had fun trying to imagine what he would’ve looked like. Maybe a panda with giant ears. Cuddly, warm and fat. You don’t know any slim pandas, do you? So now I had something to look after Crest died, because a few moments after that, she was stabbed in the back (ironic) by Piper. 

This book was really tugging at my imagination, like the crossword puzzle maze, and the crossword steps to walk across lava-like ichor (RIP Helios) to rescue Herophile. 

The part I liked most was the Meliai, because they are so loyal to Meg, almost scary. I feel like they could kill themselves if ordered by Meg to do so. They are cool, funny, funny, and funny. So is this book.