Title: Percy Jackson and The Olympians
Book One - The Lightning Thief
Author: Rick Riordan
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Date of publishing: 2005-2009
Genre: Fantasy, Young-adult fiction,Thriller,
Mystery
Reading Age: Young Adult
Call no.: RIO 2005
The worst thing that could happen to you, you know, that you could think of is
probably no food in your fridge and maybe a snowstorm stopping you from going to an
Ed Sheeran concert (or Paramore, if you prefer).
Well, 12-year-old ADHD and dyslexic Percy Jackson’s problems are far worse. His
world is turned upside down and terrifying monsters are creeping out of his Greek
textbooks and trying to murder him, besides that he has just discovered that he is the
son of the Greek sea god, Poseidon.
The story begins when he’s kicked out of 6th grade at Yancy Academy, (side note:
Percy has been kicked out of every single school he had been in. I guess a substance
called “trouble”, just squirts out from the soles of his Converse’s wherever he steps). He
and his mother escape the stinky wrath of Percy’s stepfather, Gabe and they go on a
vacation to the seaside. After about 2 hours of pouring rain and not-a-lot-of-sea at the
seaside, Percy’s best friend at school, Grover Underwood unexpectedly turns up at the
door without pants and is discovered to be a satyr. The (now utterly confused) Percy is
whisked off to Camp Half-Blood, a camp for demigods. On the way to Camp-Half-Blood
though, disaster strikes - A Minotaur kidnapped his mother to the Underworld.
He is angry and frustrated when Chiron (Percy’s former “handicapped” Greek
teacher and now his mentor and teacher at the camp), told him that the sky god, Zeus
thought that Percy has stolen his master thunderbolt and is threatening to declare war
with Poseidon if his thunderbolt isn’t returned by midnight of the summer solstice.
Then he meets Annabeth, Daughter of Athena, one of the rare smart blondes in
the world (Spoiler alert: they start dating after a few books). Annabeth, Percy and Grover
go on a quest to rescue his mother and maybe the world from blood-thirsty monsters, a
back-stabbing friend, an Earth-shattering battle between two gods and evil immortal
algebra teachers that want to murder you from the dark side.
Rick Riordan’s books are like an expensive box of assorted chocolates, you never
know what you’re gonna get. But he’s gonna make you laugh, cry, get frustrated, have
palm sweat, cry, laugh and cry again. The kind of author that gives the reader a lot of
heavy fangirl feels (“feels” is a slang for “feelings”. I like “feels” more. It sounds better).
Narrated by Percy, this book is wildly hilarious, suspenseful and OMG-my-feelsare-killing-me-aah (as the fangirls would call it; if you’re not a fangirl, google it ). Oh
and, by the way, if you like the book too much like me, don’t worry, there’s still an entire
series (and two other series by Rick Riordan).
This book review is written by
Sammie, MY1 Bauhinia