bumblebee's reviews
133 reviews

Dit boek heeft vrij veel herhaling als je de eerdere artikelen en boeken van Jeroen van Bergeijk al hebt gelezen. Dat gezegd hebbende vond ik het alsnog interessant om naar te luisteren (ik koos voor het audioboek via de Online Bibliotheek app). In principe een goed boek, maar misschien net iets beter geschikt voor mensen die minder bekend zijn met zijn werk, hoewel hij wel wat nieuwe inzichten toevoegt.

Het boek is opgedeeld in hoofdstukken voor ieder van zijn undercover baantjes, waar hij opnieuw over vertelt. Aan het einde van het boek zit nog een volledig nieuw hoofdstuk waar hij reflecteert op zijn tijd als undercoverjournalist. Dit is erg interessant en zeer zeker het lezen waard, ook als je zijn stukken verder al goed kent. 

Overigens vond ik de voorleesstijl van het audioboek een beetje haperig, hij neemt veel pauzes halverwege zinnen, waardoor het allemaal niet super loopt. Dit is mijn eerste audioboek van hem, dus geen idee of dat zijn normale voorleesstijl is. Het went wel, na een tijdje viel het me niet meer super op, maar aan het begin was het wat afleidend. Verder niets op aan te merken, hij leest het leuk voor.

It’s a fine story, and it’s fun to see these characters again, but I don’t feel like it really adds anything to what we’ve already seen in the show. This could have been a rejected script for a filler episode, essentially. I’m not mad I read it but I also don’t think I’ll ever reread it. 

This book is perfection.

not in the mood for this right now, will try again later 

I know my literal last review (of The Hidden Oracle) said it was my favourite installment in the Percy Jackson universe thus far. Unluckily for that book, I followed it up with this one, which bumped it down to second place.

The Chalice of the Gods was absolutely DELIGHTFUL! I love how lighthearted and low-stakes the book is. We get to see a lot of Percy's "normal" life in between the quest, and it's so fun to read! It's exactly what I've been craving (and never expected to find outside of fanfiction, to be honest). 

I'm thrilled we're getting two more of these! I can't wait :)

I heard a lot of good things about this series and I must say it absolutely lives up to the hype. I think it's my favourite installment in the Percy Jackson universe thus far!

I find that Rick Riordan's books sometimes suffer a bit from episodic storytelling, wherein the characters get a quest but then keep encountering sidequests/minibosses along the way, which sometimes has me a bit tired whenever they encounter yet another obstacle they must cleverly defeat. This book, I feel, balances that really well with progressing the actual main plot, and I wasn't bored for a single second. 

I also loved Apollo as a narrator. I really dig somewhat unlikable characters, and Apollo is just perfect for me. He's quite arrogant but written in a way that's really entertaining, and ultimately very lovable, and I found myself really rooting for him.

I look forward to the rest of this series!

This book is absolutely fucking phenomenal. It's the 133rd book I've read this year but it's number 1 in my heart. I'm going to have many, many, many happy rereads of it! Could not recommend this highly enough.

I really wanted to love this book, but I just didn't. I was really excited by the premise and I loved the tag line, so it took me by surprise when even after a hundred pages I still just didn't vibe with any part of it.

The writing is okay, there is some pretty interesting worldbuilding, and overall it's a serviceable story, but nothing in the book really grabbed me. I didn't find the characters compelling, and most of them felt pretty one-dimensional. I never found myself caring about any of them, and the characters didn't come across as convincingly competent enough to actually solve a murder mystery either, all of which made it difficult to be invested in the plot.

The mystery itself also wasn't that interesting to me, in part because I just didn't feel a reason to be invested, and the solution felt pretty obvious quite early on, though the exact how and why kept me just interested enough to keep me going and not DNF this book. The fact that the last part of the book has about 10-20 pages total outlining the villain's plan (TWICE!!! in TWO different monologues!!!!!) didn't really speak to the overall quality of the mystery, in my opinion. The fact that it literally had to be explained twice from different perspectives was kind of boring to read, and I had to actively stop myself from skimming the second explanation because I wanted to give the book a chance even though I just didn't care for it. 

I also feel like this book doesn't really know what to do with the concept of romance. At times, I felt like I was reading a TV drama rather than a mystery novel, but none of it really went anywhere in the end, and none of it interested me either. Maybe it was an attempt to give characters more depth, but it fell flat for me.

The one thing I think this book did very well was disability representation. I really liked how the main character's fibromyalgia existed throughout the story, and her struggles with this felt realistic and well balanced. I really appreciate that there was never a moment where her disability was sidelined for the sake of convenience for the plot, which I've seen other stories do. All this alone makes it impossible for me to rate this book lower than three stars, even though it's pretty much the only thing I 100% liked.

Overall, I'd say it's fair to give this book a chance if it seems interesting to you, but I personally won't be recommending it to anyone.