Percy Jackson fans, unite! Rick Riordan is back with a new series, The Trials of Apollo, with the one and only Greek Sun God Apollo as the main character. The first novel, The Hidden Oracle, is about Apollo’s life after his father, Zeus, casts him down and sentences him to life on Earth as a 16-year-old teenager named Lester Papadopoulos (if you can read that fluently in one try, I applaud you). Immediately after arriving on Earth, Lester (Apollo) is mugged and beaten up by some NYC thugs, but he is saved by a young demigod named Meg McCaffrey. Desperate to regain his godly status, Lester agrees to serve as Meg’s personal servant for a year. Together, they embark on a journey to find shelter at Camp Half-Blood, a camp especially for all Greek demigods. Along the way, they find Percy Jackson and get him to help them locate the camp.

The plot of this novel didn’t include Percy Jackson as much as I would’ve liked or hoped, but that is to be expected of for a new series. However, I did very much enjoy this novel. It was very funny, with both modern humor and sarcastic humor (by modern humor, I mean jokes about current trends and topics). Rick Riordan is one of my favorite authors of all time, for young adult fiction at least, and I cannot express how satisfied I am with the first book in the series. Of course, since it is the first book in an ongoing series, there was a bit of a cliffhanger at the end (I’m not spoiling!!).

Rick Riordan was initially introduced to me in the eighth grade after he wrote the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. He went on to continue that series with another: The Heroes of Olympus. The last book in that series was published in 2014, and I’ve been waiting two and a half years for another series from Riordan. This novel is a must-read for Percy Jackson fans everywhere and anyone interested in Greek and Roman mythology themed fiction books, although I do recommend reading the aforementioned series beforehand (trust me, they’re worth it). With 384 pages of action, adventure, and exciting plot twists, this novel certainly does not disappoint. If my fangirling over more Percy Jackson isn’t convincing enough and you want a less emotional opinion on this novel, pick it up for yourself, and enjoy.