A review by rinku
Die Schlacht um das Labyrinth, by Rick Riordan

adventurous funny fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

The Battle of the Labyrinth is the fourth book of the original Percy Jackson series and was again a 3.5 stars read for me. The story gets better with every book and the characters become more interesting, but like I’ve said before, it’s hard for me to give Middle Grade books a better rating since I’m not in the age group anymore. 

This book starts like every other book of the Percy Jackson series which is honestly still quite funny: Percy goes to a new school, is attacked by some mythical creatures, and leaves a mess after which he has to flee. This time, Luke and his consorts are the great danger who still try to resurrect Kronos. Their new plan is that they want to attack Camp Half-Blood via Mino’s labyrinth and, as always, our heroes only have a limited amount of time to stop them. 

Most of the book is spent in the labyrinth but I didn’t mind it since the atmosphere was great and kinda creepy there. Of course, we’re introduced to various creatures from the Greek mythology, and this time there were some that I didn’t know of which was nice. There were some parts I really liked about the story, like the scene with sphinx, or the reveal that Quintus is Daedalus which I actually didn’t predict lol. Our squad fleeing from his workshop with his wings was probably one of my favorite scenes of the whole series. But there were still some aspects of the story I didn’t like too much, like the arc around Percy having to clean some random stables or the squad having to part ways, how it always have to be in those kinds of stories. 

In contrast, I quite liked the finale since so many things are happening and revealed: We learn that it was Kronos plan to take over Luke’s body in which he succeeds in the end. Percy tries to fight him, failing and leading to Kronos attacking the camp. They’re only able to defeat him through Daedalus dying with the labyrinth in the end which was such an epic and sad moment. Grover is also (kinda) successful since he finds Pan who’s dying, giving us another sad death scene. 

My favorite aspect of this series are still the characters by far. All of them are just so great and lovable, especially the female characters. In general, the Camp feels much more like a big community and not only a place where Percy is staying temporarily. Many characters I loved from the past book were more included here, like Rachel or Tyson. I also really start to like Nico who honestly deserves better; I was a bit sad that he didn’t stay at the Camp in the end. What I didn’t like though was the love triangle introduced here, since it felt a bit artificial just to create drama between Percy and Annabeth who are most of the time so cute together. 

The Battle of the Labyrinth was a great preparation for the great finale in the next book. The stakes are as high as ever and I care so much for the characters that I hope that nothing (too) bad will happen to the in The Last Olympian.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings