Hello everyone!
Well, I'm still not 100% alright. It feels as though I'm walking on a knife's edge and have been all week - so long as I take my meds faithfully mid-morning, then I'm alright, but if I forget ... well, I think there may be hell to pay.
That being said, however, the wind outside at the moment is absolutely TERRIBLE.
Like, seriously, did some sort of random tornado have a child and sent it on a temper tantrum over here? If so, someone please sort this out, give the kid some chocolate or a new chew toy, and send it off to destroy other places.
Why am I talking as if there's someone behind this?
I've been reading on my Greek Gods again, and since I usually have a few favourites along the way, I picked up another Rick Riordan book - written, of course, by the Half-Blood campers themselves - Camp Half-Blood Confidential: Your (REAL) Guide to the Demigod Training Camp.
Which is basically another round of laughs for everyone, so why don't we jump right in?
As per usual, because I've accumulated a great deal of Riordan-oriented works, you can find links to all my previous blogs regarding his books down at the bottom of this page.
Now, as for CHBC - because the whole thing is too long to type out every single time - this is what I presume you'd get if you or I were ever discovered to be demigods (at this age, highly unlikely however) and you had to figure out your way around this really interesting summer camp all on your own. Word has it that the book is the result of senior campers watching a rather, ahem, stimulating video of the sun-god Apollo introducing the camp to newbies.
Between you and I, I think Percy& Co had it right when they went for their own little booklet.
In this book you'll find descriptions of every place on camp ground, provided by the helpful Pete, the geysir spirit (I'm not joking) who really markerts everything well, including the attic of the Big House where the old Oracle used to sit and the molten lava rock where you train.
Pretty awesome, right?
Anyway, after a foreword from Chiron himself - explaining how Apollo taught the centaur everything he knew and then the centaur continued this tradition by imparting his lessons on young heroes who then went on quests. Considering Chiron is immortal, it's safe to say he's still right there, making sure heroes under his tutolage learn what they need to know to survive.
Then, besides the desciptions provided by Pete, there are also entries by other demigod authors, who Percy Jackson probably conned somehow into writing the whole thing.
He strikes me as the type. Besides, he's done the writing gig before - twice! - and it's not like he thinks it's easy!
Anyway, we get to learn a little about new cabins by Annabeth Chase, then how the camp started producing massive amounts of strawberries, then about old curses like Harmonia's necklace, and rivalries between cabins that may occasionally end up with one of those outsmarting the rest and making them do their chores (Ares cabin, here's looking at you).
There's also an insert by local oracle Rachel Elizabeth Dare, and even a conversation with the mortal parents of our favourite two demigods, Sally Jackson and Frederick Chase (of Percy and Annabeth, respectively).
And of course no book would be complete without some appearance by the divine dazzler himself, since skits from a 1950s orientation film (made by Apollo) are all over this little booklet, with annotations by the one and only Percy Jackson.
If you want to see what Apollo looks like when he's Hula Hopping - be my guest!
In general, however, this is a fun, laughter-filled installment that brings you Camp Half-Blood a little bit closer, which is a pretty smart idea to have considering Percy Jackson is Rick Riordan's flagship in terms of storytelling. It explains some local legends and mentions things we may yet get to learn in forthcoming books, but it also brings back old favourites (Nico Di Angelo, here's to you) and faithful companions (Grover!) whom we've dearly missed. I highly recommend this to any Percy Jackson fan.
Now excuse me - like Percy says, there's a conch horn being blown outside.
That DEFINITELY can't be good ...
xx
*image not mine
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