Book 23: The Lightning Thief

TITLE: Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
AUTHOR: Rick Riordan
STARTED:August 14, 2010
FINISHED: August 15, 2010
PAGES: 400 (Audio Book)
GENRE: Juvenile

FIRST SENTENCE: Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.

SUMMARY: [From Amazon.com] Percy Jackson is about to be kicked out of boarding school...again. And that's the least of his troubles. Lately, mythological monsters and the gods of Mount Olympus seem to be walking straight out of the pages of Percy's Greek mythology textbook and into his life. And worse, he's angered a few of them. Zeus's master lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the prime suspect.

Now Percy and his friends have just ten days to find and return Zeus's stolen property and bring peace to a warring Mount Olympus. But to succeed on his quest, Percy will have to do more than catch the true thief: he must come to terms with the father who abandoned him; solve the riddle of the Oracle, which warns him of betrayal by a friend; and unravel a treachery more powerful than the gods themselves.

THOUGHTS: When the audio of this book started I was uneasy - the narrator sounded off, the story too juvenile, and the miles of our drive home seemed to stretch forever. Luckily, I was quite wrong. The narrator and the book were both fantastic. Towards the end of the drive home, I found myself silently rooting for traffic so I could hear the conclusion. Riordan totally has a Harry Potter phenomenon thing going on here and it works.

The first few pages were too juvenile for my taste, but the deeper into the story I got, the more I enjoyed it. The complexity of the story forces the reader to remember details to understand how the plot is developing. I like how Riordan doesn't explain everything in mythology. He tells just enough to get people interested and on the same page, then leaves the reader open to research Greek myths and legends. I particularly like how the whole story is constructed to resemble the Odyssey. That amused me greatly.

The Lightning Thief is an addictive story. The more I listened, the more I wanted to know how it all connected. Riordan has done a fantastic job of speaking in the voice of his characters - the teens sound like teens and the gods sound like gods. Best of all, everyone is written in shades of gray - no one is perfect and no one is purely evil. The Underworld may have been my favorite part of the book. Jersey Turnpike, teehee.


The downside I see to the book is that it is very cookie-cutter in some ways. The basis for the story is rather original, but Riordan relies too heavily on stereotypes to build characters and situations. I guess I would say A+ in originality for plotline, C for construction. On the whole, Riordan excels at mixing up the ancient and the modern, with a heavy helping of awesome characters.


RATING: 7/10 [Very Good]