This is the second book of a series of books with The Chalice of the Gods being the first book in the series. This series involves Percy getting recommendation letters from Gods to be able to apply to The New Rome University. While he bags the first recommendation letter after much trials and tribulations acquiring the second recommendation letter poses an equally intimidating challenge. Percy, Annabeth and Grover find themselves in the middle of a magical yet menacing adventure that keeps them on their toes until the very end.
The adventure involves the trio trying to retrieve Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft and crossroads, pets’ Hecuba and Gale. Percy and the rest are left to look after the pet hellhound and polecat the team manage to do so. When Grover is left alone to look after them things go downhill. Hecate’s pets escape the manse. They hunt them down, first Hecuba, whom they persuade to get back home with the help of one of Percy’s other hellhound friends, O’ Leary. Later on, Percy finds a hellhound puppy Nope, and convinces Hecuba to take care of her and makes her agree to come home with him.
The Polecat Gale is kidnapped by three Naiads. Percy and the duo rescue her and take her back home too. The story doesn’t end there. But I don’t want to spoil it for you.
This story was a fun story and Nope soon became an all time favourite dog or rather hellhound puppy. Now let us look at some of the things that made this story work.
What Made This Story Work
The pets made this story work for me. While I think Percy, Annabeth and Grover were great characters, I read this book for the pets Hecuba, Gale and Nope. Let’s dive into each of the key points that I believe made this story go well.
The Backstory of the Pets was Just Amazing
I loved that the pets had a backstory. Especially when it came to Hecuba and Gale. Hecuba is a tragic figure from mythology who lost all of her sons to the Trojan war. According to this story, Hecate the goddess of witchcraft turns her into a hellhound out of pity for her. I found this story deeply moving. We find Hecuba who is trying to make others feel her grief through bringing back undead figures to make people in her city in the United States, where she now lives, experience her pain. I thought this was a different way to look at pain and a poignant way to portray how pain transcends culture, nations and traditions. This is true today because we live in an international world where different nations are connected in more than one way.
The polecat Gale’s story is equally fascinating. She was a witch in her time and was punished by the citizens of her time including the immortal gods for bringing a dead person to life. Ideally this should make everyone happy to have someone who was dead brought back to life, but instead she earns the ire of the gods and worse her fellow mortals. The level of empathy portrayed by the author was frankly unmatched.
I Loved the Perfume Store Showdown
When Percy and the team track down the polecat to a perfume store owned by some naiad sisters they find Gale the polecat with one of the sisters held prisoner in a store. They put up a fight to save the polecat who is forced to make perfume for the sisters. But the trio end up being transformed into monsters in the process, Percy once again comes to the rescue. He talks to the polecat and convinces her to help him make a potion to undo the effect of the perfume that is sprayed on him and the gang which transforms their appearance. It is during this point that Percy learns of Gale’s backstory about how she was persecuted as a witch despite doing much good to her community. But they work together to put things right and manage to brew a potion that transforms the trio back into their proper shape.
Some Key Characters of the Story
This book was packed with some interesting characters who made one want to keep turning the pages. From Percy, Annabeth, Grover, Eudora, Hecate to Hecuba and the rest of the pets including Nope these characters had their own unique traits and characteristics that made them leap off the page.
Percy Jackson
The hero of the story, Percy Jackson is on a mission to collect a series of recommendation letters. These letters need to be submitted to gain entrance to the prestigious New Roman University he plans to attend with Annabeth. But acquiring these recommendation letters is no mere easy feat as he has to go through many trials and tribulations to acquire them. In the first instalment of this book the Chalice of the Gods Percy acquires one of the coveted recommendation letters and in this instalment of the series the goddess of witchcraft Hecate steps forward to offer a recommendation letter if Percy completes her challenge of pet sitting. But Percy soon realises that there is more to pet sitting than he ever thought there would be.
Annabeth
Annabeth, the daughter of Athena, is studying architecture while helping Percy and Grover pet sit Hecate’s pets Hecuba and Gale. She is the wise one of the group, who thinks things through more than Percy who tends to be more impulsive. When Percy and the team have to guide the ghosts back to Hecate’s manse to fix it Annabeth takes the initiative and starts off taking the procession of ghosts towards the mansion to fix it, despite it being an extremely tedious and challenging task.
Grover
Grover is the satire friend of Percy and Annabeth, who accidentally releases Hecate’s pets out into the wide world outside the manse. It takes a lot of effort on the part of Percy, Annabeth and Grover himself to bring back the missing pets. They find Hecuba terrorising the people with her zombie army of soldiers. Percy convinces her to return to the manse with the help of Nope, a hellhound puppy he finds outside. Grover also grounds himself to help find the missing polecat, which we learn might have ended his life.
Overall this was a great read with much emotional depth regarding the pets. I loved it because I am a huge dog fan and the hellhounds in this story weren’t all out evil villains.