"i try not to think. it interferes with being nuts."

[brooms]

i was almost halfway through mark of athena before i realized that only the greek kids had POV chapters in this one.

does that mean that in house of hades only the roman kids and nico will have povs? i'd miss leo's immensely. they're the busiest and funniest alongside percy's.

i love having nico back, but most of his charm is in his secretiveness. he'd make for lousy povs. and he isn't even technically part of the quest, is he? did he ever have povs in the pjo series? i can't remember.

the reason why i finally noticed the lack of roman pov was because i've had this impression since the lost hero that riordan was being intentionally lazy wrt shaping up jason as a character because he didn't want there to be any doubt in the readers' mind that percy is the top dawg of this series, too. jason's terribly bland compared to all the other new heroes introduced (even reyna, who shows up for only a few pages - yay reyna).

i was looking forward to seeing how riordan would juggle both percy and jason chapters now that he had them in the same book. i didn't get to see it, but the book pretty much confirmed that nope, we aren't really supposed to give much of a damn about jason anyway. poor dude. maybe it'll get better for him from here onward before he bites it.

aaand i'm rambling about authorial intent instead of talking about what happens in mark of athena because i thought it was a 2.5 stars out of 5. didn't really work for me. i like percy (more in son of neptune, where my affection for him peaked, than in this one) and i'm fine with annabeth, but i have no emotional investment in their relationship, so the drama of their fall to tartarus was lost on me.

i liked that piper got to be the MVP out of the jason/piper duo in this book and i liked her in general a lot more. but her chapters and their relationship continue to be by far the most boring.

leo's lovely, my favorite in this one, but the thing with hazel and frank is a drag. it seems partly resolved, for which i'm glad, since i really like frank and hazel, but i wish leo had gotten to hang out with percy instead. and jason with annabeth and frank. in a way, i feel like most of my frustration with mark of athena boils down to how i didn't care for the way the group was divided for bonding time.

anyway, whatever nemesis asks of leo, i hope he survives it.

and i hope nico gets to be amazing.

those are pretty much my only wishes for the next installment.