Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
To be honest, the first time my friend recommended this book (The Lightning Thief) to me, I was pretty reluctant to read it. First off, I knew nothing about Greek mythology, and I wasn't fond of heroic stuff, either. However, my interest was instantaneously captured when I laid my eyes on the title of the first chapter: I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher. Yes, I laughed. I wanted to find out how somebody could just vaporize his/her/their teacher, so I started reading the book. It ended up being a really fun book.
To the page of this book on the author's website!
Things I Like About This Book (and that says something if I actually like them):
- No romance! YAY! :D
- Ahem...even if there were romance, I didn't notice it. I am usually very sensitive to a book even hinting romance, and I won't like that book as much. As I was saying, romance does not take over the plot of the book, which is so rare but GREAT. The plot is quite fast-paced, and a lot of action is present. Besides, it is very fun to even just read the chapter titles.
- The chapter titles, period.
- All of the characters are thoroughly developed. You can feel how none of them (the ones with names...) are never reduced to the background as "oh, here's the (insert pathetic/unimportant role of a background character in most books) again." Not only the main characters but also the characters who talk to the main characters leave quite an impression in the readers' brains.
- There are quite some amount of fantasy elements in the book if you're a fan of those stuff. Again, they don't take over the plot, which I am glad for (I don't know about you, of course).
Things I Don't Like About This Book (well, it's me, so there's always something):
- There are elements that pretty much sets off the whole course of the book that are not completed until the end. There is nothing wrong with using the whole book to slowly complete those elements, yes, but the author doesn't say anything the remind the readers of the end part of some of those elements until the very last pages. Personally, I just find that to be slightly awkward, that's all.
- There are some parts of the plot that doesn't really fit together. Perhaps it is just me as this book is a fantasy book, and a fantasy book is bound to contain numerous things that are against the rule of human logic. Just the existence of demigods, mythical creatures, the powers those children in the book contain, etc. are against logic, so I guess I shouldn't worry about logic that much.
Personally, I would give this book a 4.7 out of 5 rating. I recommend this book to anyone who like action books. However, you should be aware of the itching cliffhanger at the end of the book. It makes the average person really (and I mean REALLY) want to read the next book. I know many people who have lost weeks of sleep because they just had to read on.