Comparing And Ranking The Percy Jackson vs. Heroes Of Olympus Series // ft. Percy’s Sassy Sarcasm, Greeks vs. Romans, And Epic Battles

you thought the Percy Jackson posts were over?? you were WRONG hahahahaha I’ll never stop

Hey loves! Apparently I have nothing better to do than talk about Percy Jackson!

I mean, it’s quarantine time so like what else to do besides Percy Jackson? I wanted to reread the original series randomly for comfort, and then I decided what the heck and binged the Heroes of Olympus series, which I had never read before.

I read the entire two series, 10 books, in one week (well, 8 days anyways). I just flew through them and it was basically all I was doing for the week was reading these books so I was thinking about them a lot! But! I was also too lazy to write them full reviews, especially since by the time I stopped reading to write about them I was several books behind on reviewing.

But I was still thinking about the a lot!! They’re really good! I wrote a post of mini reviews for the PJO series, and then a post of mini reviews for the HOO series, and then I continued writing about all the differences and comparing and contrasting them stuck on the end of my HOO series reviews, but that part alone was longer that all 5 reviews together, and so I thought, hey, why not squeeze another post out of this?

**MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW FOR BOTH PJO AND HOO**

(But also I ranked all 10 books at the bottom and there’s no spoilers in that so just jump to the bottom!!!!)

Characters

PJO: Percy Jackson is the main character of his series, with Annabeth and Grover as secondary major characters, and then a huge supporting cast of other major and minor characters such as Tyson, Clarisse, Rachel, Luke, Sally, etc. We really get to know Percy spending five books in his head, and he really grows a lot throughout the story, which I loved. There’s definitely growth throughout the variety of other characters, although somewhat limited since we only see them through Percy’s perspective

HOO: Heroes of Olympus is more of a squad type book series, with a huge ensemble case of main characters. There’s the seven of the prophecy: Percy, Annabeth, Jason, Piper, Leo, Hazel, and Frank. Nico and Reyna aren’t part of the seven, but they’re also major characters with chapters from their perspective. It’s great getting to see so many characters, as most of them are all amazing in their own ways. However, this made us unable to spend too much time with any one of them, and it could be annoying having to spend so many pages with any individual character if I didn’t really like them and wanted to get back to the characters I did love! (Percy >>>> Annabeth >>>> Leo >>>>> anyone else sorry).

Verdict: Percy Jackson. But this is probably more of a personal thing; I can see why you would like Heroes of Olympus more.

Narration

PJO: This section literally exists in my post so I can fangirl about Percy because first person Percy POV is literally giving me life. I love his snark and sassy, sarcastic, sense of humor and jokes. Reading his perspective feels like talking with a funny friend! I feel like what made PJO really stand out to me was the charm and heart, and I feel like that’s all from Percy.

HOO: Sorry I’m biased but my biggest problem with the HOO series is probably I feel it’s lacking the spark and charm from PJO from Percy’s first person monologue! These were still really good books of course, but they just didn’t stand out like Percy! I did like seeing various things from different perspectives though; for example, it was cool to see both Greeks and Romans thinking about the same thing and seeing how they changed in their eyes! I was also so happy to finally get the perspective of beloved characters: mainly Annabeth and Nico from PJO! I also loved getting to see specific events from the perspectives of various characters, but I wished that I could see some events from different characters than we were given!! (we were robbed of a chance to see Percy fighting alongside Poseidon and Annabeth reconciling with Athena after finding the Parthenon in BOO)

Also my biggest complaint of HOO is the lack of Percy POV in Blood of Olympus… it started with him it should have ended with him…

Verdict: Percy Jackson. I’m so biased.

Action/Battles

PJO: There were some seriously amazing battles in these books! The fight between Percy and Ares at the end of Lighting Thief was amazing! I loved the fight in the end of Titan’s Curse, and basically everything Percy did in Battle of the Labyrinth discovering the full extent of his powers and what he could do and summon was incredible!

HOO: There was so much incredible action, battles, and use of power in this series! I loved getting to see Percy of course, but I loved what all seven could do! From Piper’s charmspeak and cornucopia, to Frank turning into animals, to Hazel manipulating the mist, to, my absolute favorite, Percy and Jason, sons of Poseidon and Zeus, fighting together with the air and sea, these fights were seriously amazing! I have to give it to this series because I loved seeing all the incredible things all these different heroes could do, together and apart!

Verdict: Heroes of Olympus

Villain

PJO: You can’t have a good series without a good villain, right? The villain of this series was amazing! Kronos gradually stirring, rising, coming to power, and confronting them in a fight over 4 years was incredible to watch. And Luke was one of the best written characters ever! At times it was so easy, even for Percy, to understand his motivation, and his backstory with Annabeth and Thalia showed him to really be a fully fleshed, three dimensional character. The struggle with a former friend turning to bad, yet Annabeth continuing to hope he wasn’t all bad, which even came to be true as he redeemed himself and was “the hero” from the prophecy in the end was so emotional and compelling and incredible.

HOO: Gaea is a seriously terrifying villain! How can you fight against the Earth itself? Unfortunately, it seems that it was really easy, as I thought that the ending of Blood of Olympus was super anticlimactic. I thought throughout the series, Gaea was really built up to be a good foe, and I was certainly terrified, but she literally woke up and was defeated in like two chapters at the end I was like ???? that’s it?? And since she wanted to basically destroy everything there really wasn’t the emotion from Luke’s villain, it felt more two dimensional good and bad.

Verdict: Percy Jackson 

Romance

PJO: This is a middle grade series so there’s really minimal romance, and that’s just fine; it’s not at all the point of the story. That said, I’m Percabeth trash and was loving the buildup from them being kid friends who annoy each other to falling for each other. I love how clueless Percy is haha. And best underwater kiss of all time ❤

HOO: This is also technically middle grade but felt more YA in multiple ways, including that there was significantly more romance. There were so many Percabeth moments that made me so happyyyyy! Percy literally fell into Tartarus for Annabeth oaisjfkalsejdifoaosidfkld. There were other romances too, including Jason and Piper (pretty cute), Hazel and Frank (also cute, although she’s literally 13 so it felt a bit weird at 13 Percy didn’t even know what a girl was I swear), Leo and Calypso (so adorable it had the least time but was my fav after Percabeth!!!), and a hint of Nico and Will at the end (ahh I just want Nico to be happy he’s too precious gah).

Verdict: Heroes of Olympus, based on romance alone. But if you’re not interested in romance in a middle grade fantasy book, Percy Jackson

Overarching Story

PJO: Percy Jackson takes place over a little more than 4 years, with the Titans gradually rising to power, and Percy eventually coming head to head with Kronos based on a prophecy on his 16th birthday. This isn’t the main focus of the story though until the last book; the first four books have the Titans as the overarching background story, but the immediate concerns are other smaller goals: return Zeus’s master bolt, retrieve the Golden Fleece, rescue Artemis and Annabeth, stop Luke from using the Labyrinth. I liked the focus on these individual quests, each with its own prophecy and small group of people going on the quest, while fitting in to the Titan story.

HOO: Heroes of Olympus has the overarching story of stopping Gaea from awaking, which takes place over less than a year. The first two books had their own small quests, while the last three books felt like they were all three parts of the same one story, flying on the Argo II to the ancient land to stop Gaea, while also preventing war between the Greeks and Romans. I personally felt this less left room for development since it was so quick (less than a year), and the story felt less of a complex gradual buildup and more direct.

Verdict: Percy Jackson for me but I feel like this one is probably personal preference too.

World And Mythology

PJO: I loved the Greek mythology of Percy Jackson! It was super cool and interesting to see the world, the gods, the myths. The greek mythology was also fairly easy to understand, which was good.

HOO: This really expanded the world to more gods and monsters and myths, to contain both Greek and Roman mythology. It really made the world bigger and more complex and incredible. At times it could get a bit confusing though, especially wrapping my head around the one same god having both a different Greek and Roman aspect.

Verdict: Heroes of Olympus

Nostalgia

PJO: This has literally nothing to do with how objectively good the books are but I have to say that these books make me so nostalgic. I read the when I was 10, and these books were really a pivotal part of my childhood ❤

HOO: Sorry.

Verdict: Percy Jackson

Overall

Overall, I definitely preferred Percy Jackson over Heroes of Olympus. I would say that Heroes of Olympus is really good, but there are a lot of really good fantasy series, and this one really isn’t so memorable, and kind of fades into the many. Percy Jackson though, is so full of charm and heart, so wonderful and fresh and magical feeling, and it definitely goes in my list of all time favorite book series ❤

My Ranking

And literally why not, since I just binged 10 books in a week, why not rank them? This is pretty based on emotions, not super objective, but based on my recent binge, this is how I would rank the books, from worst to best!

10. The Lost Hero
9. The Blood of Olympus
8. The Son of Neptune
7. The Sea of Monsters
6. The House of Hades

5. The Last Olympian
4. The Mark of Athena
3. The Titan’s Curse
2. The Lightning Thief
1. The Battle of the Labyrinth

So there’s my comparison and ranking for all ten Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus books! Also check out my mini reviews for both individual series!

• Percy Jackson Series Mini Reviews & 50 Favorite Moments // Squealing Over Sword Fighting, Tidal Waves, And Percabeth
• The Heroes of Olympus Series Mini Reviews & 50 Favorite Moments, And My Numerous Complaints // Being Percabeth Trash (but i wanted more), Loving Nico And Leo, And sCREAMING over Tartarus

Let’s Chat

What’s your favorite PJO/HOO book? Which series do you prefer? Who is your favorite character? I’d love to chat in the comments below ❤

*all of the book covers in this post taken from Goodreads, and all other images from Rick Riordan’s website!