Percy Jakson and the Lightning Thief

Author: Rick Riordan

Genre: Fiction, Fantasy (Mythology), Adventure, Middle School

Publisher: Disney Hyperion

Year: 2005

Ranking: 3.5/ 5

Synopsis

Percy Jackson is a good kid, but he can't seem to focus on his schoolwork or control his temper. And lately, being away at boarding school is only getting worse-Percy could have sworn his pre-algebra teacher turned into a monster and tried to kill him. When Percy's mom finds out, she knows it's time that he knew the truth about where he came from, and that he go to the one place he'll be safe. She sends Percy to Camp Half Blood, a summer camp for demigods (on Long Island), where he learns that the father he never knew is Poseidon, God of the Sea. Soon a mystery unfolds and together with his friends -- one a satyr and the other the demigod daughter of Athena -- Percy sets out on a quest across the United States to reach the gates of the Underworld (located in a recording studio in Hollywood) and prevent a catastrophic war between the gods.

The Author

Richard Russell "Rick" Riordan, Jr.  (Born June 5, 1964) is an American author best known for writing the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series. He also wrote the adult mystery series Tres Navarre and helped edit Demigods and Monsters, a collection of essays on his Percy Jackson series. He helped develop the ten books of The 39 Clues series and wrote the first book in the series, The Maze of Bones. In 2012, he completed a trilogy focusing on Egyptian mythology, The Kane Chronicles, and, in 2014, completed The Heroes of Olympus, the sequel to the Percy Jackson series that focuses on Roman and Greek mythology. He is also planning to write a series based on Norse mythology.

 Personal Experience with This Book

I hesitated to write this review because I consider, still consider, that I am biased at this point. I started reading the Lightning Thief when the first movie came out and at that point the story just did not fill my expectations so I decided I will watch me the movie instead of reading the book. The reason I picked  up the book again was because I started to see many good reviews about it and also about the sequel of the series, the Heroes of Olympus. I have always liked Greek mythology so I though why don’t give it a try again.

The story itself is pretty good. It is an original story with interesting characters and a great plot. It is also a very good way for children to understand Greek mythology without having to read more complicated books so, it is educational as well. I give a lot of credit to Rick Riordan for creating this whole world where ancient Greek Gods live in out 21th century world and how they influence the everyday life of all of us. The idea by itself is just awesome.

What happened to me while reading the book however was that I could not relate to Percy. I mean, I am not saying that the character is lame or something like that, it is just that I could not relate to him. I could not like him at all. I even felt annoyed by him sometimes, and to feel that for a main character is not good.

I tried to understand Percy so many times, I really did. And I am so sorry to the many Percy Jackson’s fans out there but for one reason or the other I just could not like him. Not him, not the rest of the characters that were being described in the book, sometimes I felt bad for Annabeth because of what happened to her but that was all. And Grover is funny…. That is all.

I, however, enjoyed the movie so much but I did not watch the second movie because I wanted to know if maybe the reason I did not enjoy the book as much as the movie was because of the many comparison I did while reading the first book. So, I read the second book and then watched the movie. And nothing changed… in fact I am already in the third book of the series and I still do not find Percy likable…. Sometimes I even feel he needs really his father to put him down to earth. But I will not talk about the whole series here… I will keep reading it just because I want to see by myself if definitely I don’t fall in love with this series or if maybe I am wrong and biased and I will do it in the meantime.

What I can tell for the first book was that… the story was great but the character development was not that good… to my opinion… and,  that I did not feel something  for any of the characters of this particular book.