The Fire of Ares - 2012 Book #7

The Fire of Ares by Michael Ford was a lot different than what I was expecting. I saw on a list of books labeled, "If you liked Percy Jackson, try these!" Because of that, I was expecting it to be similar to the Percy Jackson books. It's not anything like the Percy Jackson books. The only similarity is that they both talk about things that happened in ancient Greece and mention some Greek gods and goddesses. The Fire of Ares actually takes place in ancient Greece. The main character is a twelve-year-old boy named Lysander. He has lived his whole life as a slave to the Spartans, the ruling class of Sparta. His mother is ill, and he has spent his days trying to get extra grain in the fields to help pay for medicine to care for his mother in their little shack. He has been training secretly with his friend in the mornings in hopes that one day, he can join the rebel slaves and take over the Spartans to gain their freedom.

His life changes drastically, when one day, a noble sees an amulet Lysander has had since he was born - the one thing of value that he owns. Lysander gets the chance to train as a Spartan. He decides to do it, mostly because his amulet had just been stolen, and he believes it was stolen by someone in the barracks. He brings his friend with him to help him and starts the harsh training of a Spartan warrior.

He is treated differently from the start since many of the boys know that he used to be a slave and aren't sure how he got to be there to train as a Spartan warrior. Many of the boys think he is some sort of spy, and Lysander feels sort of like a spy to. He still feels like he is not a Spartan, and often relates better with the slaves in the barracks. As Lysander struggles to find where he fits in in his new life, he also frantically searches for his missing amulet, and in the process, begins discovering other things as well. Things that he maybe shouldn't be discovering.

What I thought was going to be somewhat of a fantasy ended up being a historical fiction book, which is fine by me, since I really enjoy those as well. There is a lot to learn from this book about how life for different people was like at this time in history. This was a great read, and I look forward to reading the sequel.

The Last Girls of Pompeii - 2012 Book # 2

The Last Girls of Pompeii by Kathryn Lasky was a very interesting book. I really like historical fiction, because it helps the reader see what might have happened in historical events. It helps people realize that those things happened to real people and see what those people might have felt or been experiencing at the time.

The two main characters in the book are a girl and her slave. The girl was born with a crippled arm, and she always feels that she needs to hide her arm when around other people, especially ones that she doesn't know. Her slave is actually more like her best friend. They've been together since the girl was born, the slave being just four years older than the girl.

From the title, I knew that the volcano had to erupt somewhere in this story, and the anticipation for that built up the further through the book I got. It actually was the main reason I didn't want to put the book down. I knew what was coming, and I didn't know how it was going to affect the characters I had been reading about.

I think this book has a lot of good historical facts in it. The reader can really learn a lot about what life was like in ancient Roman times. They learn a lot about how marriage worked back then, since the main character's sister was planning her wedding, and also learn a lot about how people born with disabilities were viewed in that day as well. The book also includes some about the gladiators, since the girl slave's brother was a gladiator. Also, there is quite a bit about mythology in the book as well, since it was a part of people's daily lives in that it was their religion that they had at the time. I think the book was very educational as well as a good read.

However, I thought the ending was terrible. I guess I shouldn't have expected much better, since I knew the volcano was going to erupt sometime. Other than the very ending, the book was great.

The Heroes of Olympus: Son of Neptune - 2011 Book #91

This is the second book in Rick Riordan's The Heroes of Olympus Series, which is a follow-up series to Percy Jackson and the Olympians. In the first book, the reader meets Jason, Leo, and Piper at Camp Half-Blood where Percy Jackson has gone missing. There is talk about the Great Prophecy that involves seven demi-gods, and talk of another camp.

In this second book, the reader finds that Percy Jackson has lost his memory and stumbles across this other camp, the Roman camp for demi-gods. While some things are similar and seem familiar to him, other things seem foreign, and sometimes, even wrong. Percy Jackson is sent out on a quest with his new friends from the camp: Hazel and Frank, who both have secrets they are keeping from everyone.
On their quest, they have only days to travel to The Land Beyond the Gods and free Death from the hands of an evil giant that is said to be invincible in his homeland, which, of course, is where he is.

The book is written in the same free-flowing manner as his other books. The book has fun characters, interesting characters that react to things and to each other in very realistic ways. Since they are at a Roman camp, the reader learns a lot about Roman mythology and some history in the process of reading this book.

 While the book ties up a lot of strings, there is enough that's left unanswered or unknown that makes the reader, or at least me, anxious to read the next book. Unfortunately, the third book, The Mark of Athena doesn't come out until Fall of 2012.