Cliffhangers

As I finish reading The Mark of Athena, I am just puzzled by the ending of the book. Rick Riordan completely blows my mind with the plots twists that he fuses into the story. For those who have not read or completed reading The Mark of Athena, first read the book and then read this post.

ATTENTION SPOILER ALERT!!!

So as you know, if you have actually read the book and have not decided to read this post without reading the book, that the ending of The Mark of Athena is a cliffhanger. The best thing about the cliffhangers that Rick Riordan implements is that the demigods or demigod, in some of his books, complete(s) the quest and makes it look like a happy little princess-like ending, but then with his evil thought, yet making good twists, he fabricates a never-ending suspenseful until the next book comes out. In The Mark of Athena, he concocts a ending where the demigods successfully succeeds their quest in finding Athena's Parthenos, a statue that went missing for thousands of years, and they rescue Nico and Rome. Then, of course, Rick Riordan doesn't stop there, he forges the plot structure of House of Hades with the ending of the book and makes Annabeth and Percy fall into Tartarus. If you think of this technique, cliffhangers, in a more broader view, you will realize a similarity between the books in the series and a typical essay.

One similarity between the Heroes of Olympus series and an essay is that the first book acts as an introduction in the "essay". But, after The Lost Hero introduces the long-term objective of the demigods, which is to stop Gaea from waking up, and states the objective clearly, which is like the thesis of the essay, Rick Riordan writes the "first body paragraph" that describes the first step to reach the long-term objective. Then eventually uses a transition that makes it easy for the reader to transition from the first book to the second book by using a cliffhanger. Then at the beginning of the second book he then states the quest in the second "paragraph". And then this structure continues on until the last book, which has the first part containing the last paragraph and the last part having the conclusion that ends "essay".

Though I do not enjoy reading cliffhangers, as a writer, I must comply with this strategy in order to keep the reader engaged throughout my writing. The cliffhanger will induce a emotion in the reader that is the goal of the writer. The emotion that it sparked in the reader will coax them to reader the writing further and will have a greater lasting impact on the reader.

I think that Rick Riordan did create an extremely suspenseful ending in the book, because I just couldn't stop thinking about how Percy and Annabeth would survive in Tartarus, which contains the most dangerous of the most dangerous monsters, if that makes sense.

My future plans in reading, would be to get hold of The House of Hades, but if I can't I will continue reading a series that I started last year- The 39 Clues, until I get the book.