Kay's Bookshelf

I cannot help liking Percy less and less with each book. Sure, he is a noble hero, an no one can deny him that (especially after this book when his one weakness is revealed). And yet the author had tried to make him an ordinary boy too, and this side of him annoys me to death. My pet peeve regarding him is that he knows very little mythology (or anyway, a lot less than he should have, being a part of that world). Also, every single time he sees something to read, even a few words, he reminds us he’s dyslexic (but we knew that already! why is he mentioning it again and again?). Last but not least, his one reaction to everything seems to be “whoa!”, and it gets somewhat tiring after a while.

As for the other characters, especially the newly introduced ones (Artemis and her Hunters) they do seem pretty interesting — and, of course, Zoe Nightshade is my favorite of them all. Grover is still the same old Grover, caught in his permanent quest for Pan, Thalia is the same punk/goth kid that for some reason I don’t very much like, Bianca Di Angelo is another promising character and I very much hope we’ll see more of her in the future (the name is kinda meh though, Bianca means “white” in Italian and Angelo means “angel”, so a literal translation would be “the white one of the angel”, which I don’t much care for). On the gods side, we get to know a few new ones, like Apollo/Fred, who is very fond of writing haikus ever since he visited Japan (my favorite one being

“Green grass breaks through snow.
Artemis pleads for my help.
I am so cool.”

). Also, we get to see a new side of Dionysus (even his wife Ariadne makes a cameo appearance), and to be honest I am starting to almost like him, unlike in the previous books.

I really don’t know how I feel about the series at the moment. I very much loved the first book (it was a very pleasant surprise for a mythology buff such as I). The second one has been a bit less enjoyable and surprising, very likely because this time I knew what I was going to find inside and had some pretty high expectations too. With this book I started in quite the opposite way as, after the second book, I had no expectations at all — and yet I managed to end up a bit disappointed. There are still mythological characters (including some new ones), Percy still goes on a quest across America, and yet… and yet something wasn’t there. The book felt pretty normal to me instead of the sparkling one Book 1 was. I will probably read the next book at one time in the future, to find out what happens next, but I cannot help being a bit sad that the first book didn’t get the worthy sequels it would have been nice to have. My subjective opinion, of course.

A quote I liked seeing come to life in my mind:

As he said that, skeletons erupted from the ground. There were twelve of them, one for each tooth the General had planted. They were nothing like Halloween skeletons, or the kind you might see in cheesy movies. These were growing flesh as I watched, turning into men, but men with dull gray skin, yellow eyes, and modern clothes—gray muscle shirts, camo pants, and combat boots. If you didn’t look too closely, you could almost believe they were human, but their flesh was transparent and their bones shimmered underneath, like X-ray images.

What I liked most: A fact that probably everyone else but me knew for ages, but I have only rather recently found out. I read in an interview with Rick Riordan (that unfortunately I can no longer track down) that one of his own kids is dyslexic and has ADD. One evening he wanted a bedtime story and this is how Percy Jackson was born (dyslexic and with ADD so the kid could identify with him better). I think it’s a really cute story, especially as I have somewhat wondered about where these afflictions come from in Percy, as we very rarely get to see heroes “with issues”. The fact that the author has taught Greek myths for a few years is also quite cool (and it very much shows in the pages of the books).

To choose a tidbit from this particular book, my favorite was the moo cow!! Okay, okay, the Ophiotaurus. A cute creature with gentle eyes named Bessie (although it’s actually a he) :)

Also, the moment when Grover got “the message from the Wild” was quite nicely written, making me hope that there will be some more such messages in the next books (or even a cameo of Pan if it is not too much to ask). show spoiler

What I liked least: My nominations are as follows:
Worst Percy Jackson moment:
When he said this:

“I didn’t know exactly when cars were invented, but I figured that was like prehistoric times—back when people watched black-and-white TV and hunted dinosaurs.”

I cannot believe a fourteen year old kid can be that uneducated, and I have a hard time esteeming him if that’s the case.

Worst plot hole:
show spoiler

Something else that bothered me:
Zoe is supposed to be really old and talk in a quaint way as she thinks English is a hard language (changing too much too often). Then why is it that her only “quaintness” is that she uses thee/thou/thy instead of you/your? Not to mention she even has trouble even saying “your” although it is a very simple word compared to some of the rest of the English language (like for example “health”, “depth”, etc).

Recommend it to? Whoever read and liked the first two books, of course. This is a highly successful series (quite similar to Harry Potter in many regards), so I definitely encourage one to read it (despite my pesonal take on it ’cause tastes vary as they say).

See also:
Rick Riordan – the official site
Rick Riordan – the blog

This book is a sequel to:
The Lightning Thief
The Sea of Monsters

This book is followed by:
The Battle of the Labyrinth

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