The Trials of Apollo: The Hidden Oracle

Rick Riordan
Jun 6, 2016
5 min read

Updated: Jan 12, 2022

5 STARS to this wonderful creation! This review will contain no spoilers! Though this book does spoil the end of Heroes of Olympus, so if you haven't read that series, what are you waiting for?!

Summary:

The Hidden Oracle is the first book in a five book series called the Trials of Apollo. This book spoils the ending to the Heroes of Olympus, so in my opinion it's best to read HoO before this, which means you would read the Percy Jackson series before HoO. It's almost like a "book 11" in the Greek world of Riordan’s writing and continues right where HoO left off.

So Apollo is cast out of Olympus and sent down to earth as a mortal 16 year old boy, with basically the powers of a Apollo born demigod. He was being punished by Zeus (again). This has happened before so he knows he has to attach himself to a demigod that will claim his services. Apollo has to prove himself worthy of "God rank" again and he does this by helping the demigod he works with. He meets Meg as he falls ever gracefully into a dumpster and the first step he must do in order to stay alive and help her is to get them to Camp Half-Blood. The story takes off from there!

I don't know why it took me so long to finish this book because it was P E R F E C T! The first half of this book was only a little teensy bit slow, but the rest was SO GOOD! This book was fast paced, action packed, full of sarcasm and witty remarks, and was a real tear jerker at times. I LOVE IT! Oh & If you were expecting more to the Blood of Olympus and didn't get it, this book will satisfy your "What happened next?!" Also, I love Apollo so much. He's such an amazing character and it's crazy seeing him grow into his mortal self.

Plot:

I was happy to find out that the mains in this book aren't offspring of the "big three.” I mean we don't get to follow any Apollo kids in the other books. They make their cameos but we don't really have one as a MAIN; so now we get see into what a son of Apollo "should" be able to do since Apollo has powers similarly in strength to that of his children. AND we get to see the powers of another major god that we haven't got to meet a kid from, but I can't say who because that's revealed in the story!

So THO is being told from Apollo’s point of view and only his POV. I found that Apollo was telling the story kinda like a "dear diary" where he is explaining what's happening from his point of view while adding in his own commentary. So it's like he knows that readers are reading his story and he's talking to us. His commentary is where a lot of the comedic relief, allusions to music and such, and the sarcasm mostly came from. This is why Apollo was SO funny! We get to learn a lot about him too. Little facts and tidbits and his life as a God. Also common stories told about him, but the “what really happened” like Apollo confessions.

Now about the villain for this series. If you were wondering, “What other villain could Rick Riordan come up with? I mean we just fought Gaea!" Then you're in for something super different and kinda weird with an even more gory and horrible history. I never would have thought that the villain in this book was who he was. Again after the first book I seriously have no idea how Apollo is going to be able to defeat his demons in this series. I always never know how in the world the characters in these books are going to succeed. I just hope he pulls through!

Oh and I have to mention this again, Riordan left us with so little information in Blood of Olympus for a reason. And the reason is this book! Some of the loose ends from the last book in HoO were tied up in a nice bow. I officially feel much better about how Heroes of Olympus ended because I was so sad that that book was entirely unsatisfying. Now I know why.

Lastly, I’m happy that this book includes a few of the LGBTQ+, Apollo himself and #SolAngelo! Apollo just doesn’t care for people’s opinions on who he falls in love with, boy, girl, who cares. Basically if he has a love for a human, it doesn't matter their sex and he’s like “I don’t get why people fuss about it.” It’s great! And this is in a middle grade book, too!

Characters:

There are two main characters which are Meg and Apollo. Meg was dark, spunky, strong, and quite unique. We really don't get to know a lot about her, so she’s kind of a mystery. In this book, some interesting things were revealed & we know we're going to get more of her story in the books to come. Apollo was absolutely hilarious! Also arrogant, self-centered, and sarcastic because no Riordan book would be complete without sarcasm, but his character arc is great because he goes from having the mind of a superior God to starting to understand the difficulty of being a mortal demigod.

Will, Nico, Percy, and others who I cannot say quite yet have their presence in this book and it was SO GREAT. I missed Percy so much in Blood of Olympus and having him back and Nico and Will was awesome! I mean look at this cuteness:

Will: "Nico, we need to have another talk about your people's skill."

Nico: "Hey, I'm just trying to state the obvious."

Will: "I apologize for my boyfriend."

Nico: "Could you not-"

Will: "Would you prefer special guy? Or significant other?"

Nico: "Significant annoyance, in your case.”

THEY ARE JUST TOO CUTE. I need fanfic of their wedding someday.

Overall:

Likes:

• Engrossing and fast-paced. You didn't notice when 100 pages passed!

• So. Many. REFERENCES. Riordan alluded to many things like Guardians of the Galaxy, RateMyProfessor (if you're a college student like me, you know how necessary that site is), etc.

• The monsters are ALWAYS done SO WELL.

• Even though Percy isn't in this book the entire time, we still get some nostalgia of PJO and HOO and how all those events lead us to this book. Like one huge picture that we didn't know we were only getting pieces of. If that doesn't make sense you just have to read it to get me. So do it!

Dislikes:

• Sometimes I felt like Apollo's arrogance and selfishness was forced, maybe a tad bit too much.

• Also, the beginning of the book was a teensy bit slow. We didn’t really get to “fixing the problem” until maybe half way through the book. I didn’t mind this much to be honest because it made sense with the how the pacing was supposed to go.

Altogether an amazing amazing amazing book! I cannot wait for the next book. Riordan had laid out the basis of the series in this book and I'm so excited to see how Apollo is tested in his trials to come!

Thank you for reading! :)