The Heros of Olympus: The Lost Hero

So, this is the follow-up series to Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan. It starts off with three new demigods: Jason, Piper and Leo. Since the writing style is just as awesome as his first series, I'm going to focus now on our new demigods. Warning! There are major spoilers ahead!
Jason is a son of Zeus, and Thalia's sister. Apparently they were separated at birth, yadayadayada. I really don't have any strong opinions on Jason. He didn't really have a strong personality or anything. His powers (controlling air currents and redirecting lightning) were cool, but not excessive.
Piper McLean is a daughter of Aphrodite who has the rare gift of charmspeaking. Piper I honestly find to be a bit of a Mary-Sue. She's always described as 'stunning' and 'beautiful' which I get, since she's a daughter of Aphrodite, but it does go a little overboard. In addition, she's nothing like her airhead siblings, being smart and powerful. She kicks the butt of the head Aphrodite counselor and takes over at the end. Really? So not only is Drew a bully, she can't fight? Piper needs to be taken down a notch, it seems like Riordan is trying to make her perfect, which is sickening.
Leo is cool. I wasn't sure about him at first, but on the second read through, I realized I love Leo. Leo is the troubled kid who makes jokes to cover up his inner turmoil. He's nothing flashy or special like Piper and Jason, he sticks to the background and keeps the group moving. He's got terrible luck with girls (always falls for ones WAY out of his range, ie: Thalia and Kihone, goddess of snow) and his mom died in a fire when he was a kid. He's a son of Hephaestus with the almost unheard of gift of being a firebender. The only problem I have with Leo is at the end, where he becomes head counselor. Just because he discovered Bunker 9 is no reason to dump the head counselor. He's still an inexperienced leader.
Plot! The idea of Gaea waking is absolutely terrifying! I really liked this idea, though I don't think Riordan will be able to top this. The Latin and Greek camps warring was also an awesome idea, and I can't wait to see what the Latin camp has done with Percy! Getting to meet some of the old Greek myths like Midas and Medea was really cool, and I loved Aeolus, the winds master. He was great. In all, this book was every bit as exciting as the first series and promises to have even more action and hilarity in the following books! Keep reading guys!