Book Review

I'd seen advertisements for the movie Percy Jackson and The Olympians. While looking around at various books at the Laurel, Maryland Books-a-Million bookstore, I found the paperback edition of the movie. I read the brief synopsis books provide on the inside cover and, the book sounded good. I decided to buy it. I was glad I did. I found the book interesting in that it takes a different tack with the Greek gods (Zeus, Posidon, Hades, Ares, etc.). As Western Civilization moved west and the premier Western country became the United States, the story has it where the Greek gods moved west with civilization. Mount Olympus is located directly above New York City and Hades is located directly below Los Angeles (maybe the author doesn't like L.A.). The book's author Rick Riordan has other twists. The Greek gods are shown in very different and amusing forms vice the traditional way we would think of them. Ares is shown as a super muscular biker badass riding a Harley Davidson motorcycle. Zeus is shown in a very well tailored business suit and Posidon as a tan tie die t-shirt and sandals fisherman. The main character of the book Percy (short for Perseus) Jackson is a kid who is dyslexic, never knew his father (Posidon) and has constant bad luck which takes a major turn for the worse when the all sorts of Greek myths start to come life to his total surprise. This ultimately leads to him being chased by the Minotaur before successfully reaching Camp Half-Blood where Percy discovers he is a demi-god. Further along in the story, he finds out his father is Posidon. This brings up all kinds of issues for him as he struggles to deal with the knowledge and the wondering why Posidon never had anything to do with him. Also, Percy finds out this neglect is extremely common among other demi-god children.

I found some of the scenes in the book touching, others amusing (Riordan does thrown in humor at various points of the story) and the story has good action. The book moves along at a good pace so the reader shouldn't become bored with it. The paperback edition came in at 375 pages which isn't overly long. The first book is called "The Lightning Thief." It is part of a 5 book series, all of which have been published though the fifth book (The Last Olympian) is currently only available in hard bound. Standard price for the paperback editions is $7.99.

Overall, I found the first book a very nice read. So much so, I bought the second book "The Sea of Monsters" which I'll review another time. The books are aimed towards teenagers but, I think most ages would enjoy them (the very young wouldn't know enough about Greek mythology to understand all the references and characters in the book). If you want a light-hearted good fantasy read, "The Lightning Thief" may be for you. Cheers all!