#2 The Heroes of Olympus - The House of Hades by Rick Riordan
After leaving us with a cliff hanger ending in the last book, we pick up right where we left off. Percy and Annabeth plunge into Tartarus while their friends aboard the Argo II race to meet them at the Doors of Death. The only problem is, to close the doors to prevent more monsters returning to the world from the underworld, the doors must be closed by someone on BOTH sides - the real world and Tartarus.
We get to meet some fun new characters in this one, and revisit some older ones that we didn't get to spend as much time within the original series. The descriptions of Tartarus were pretty awesome. We also find out that one character is gay, to which my 8-year-olds' only comment (pretty much said together) was "I did NOT see that coming!" because kids are awesome. (I have to admit, I saw it coming as soon as he was uncomfortable with the idea of needing to seek out Cupid for advice/help.
Overall, we've all really been enjoying the series and are devouring the next book at the rate of at least 2 chapters a night before we absolutely need to put the kids to bed.
