Reader´s Choice Review: Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief

PERCY JACKSON AND THE LIGHTNING THIEF

By Rick Riordan

Amazon Prices: 7 GBP (Paperback)/ 8 USD (Paperback)

The first time I tried to read this, I never got past chapter one. Then again, at the time I was comparing it to the other two series I´d recently aquired (Skulduggery Pleasant and His Dark Materials), and especially with HDM, that is hard competition.

So eventually I ran out of reading material, and decided to pick it up again. This time it was an instant catch.

The idea isn´t a bad one, but it isn´t underused, either. 'What if the ancient greeks were actually right – if there is a main god called Zeus, various snake/bull-related monsters and a such thing as demigods?'. Not, of course, in that level of detail, but the basic idea of pretending that an extinct religion was right isn´t overly original.

As it turns out, it doesn´t have to be. Riordan haven´t given himself the task of being 'original' – rather, the greatest thing about The Lightning Thief is its charming way of fitting the original characters from Greek myths into the 21. century life. A lot of humorous remarks are made on that account (wait for the one about Houdini; That´s my favourite line of the book).

A thing that does get tiresome, however, is that the author has seemingly tried to press too many stories into this book – I honestly don´t think it´s too much of a spoiler that both Medusa and the Minotaurus appear, along with many other iconical Greek legends. It is, as mentioned, a charming little thing he does to twist them into the present, but you do tire of it eventually. I´d rather see him presenting us to the legends over several books rather than putting so many together in book one. But keep in mind that I haven´t read the rest of the pentalogy – I can´t be sure how he handles these characters in the books to come, but there are the options to either use the characters from The Lightning Thief extensively in the sequels, or introduce a new bunch of characters per book. I´d be a bit disappointed about so many iconic figures getting a brief, fairly insignificant introduction each in book one, followed by a large role in each of the other books – but similarly, I´d be disappointed not to see my favourite Greek monsters again later in the series. Of course, Riordan might have had some ingenious solution in mind (again, I wouldn´t know!), it´s just that I can´t see any, and to avoid disappointment, I don´t expect any.

Another thing that deserves a mention is that this book is over-americanized. Many references in it, to places or to people, I´m sure I´d have understood if I´d been an American - it´d be a good thing if Riordan could make it a bit more internationally pleasing during the next four books.

But all in all, Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief is a certified pageturner, and for me personally, also a great way of remembering the Greek legends.

Another note is that interestingly, it´s written in first person´s narrative. That´s a hard thing to do, and it only goes to honour Riordan that he could pull it off so successfully.

THE CONCLUSION:

Are you the target audience for Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief?

It would be a strange person of age 12-16 who didn´t feel some spark of recognition or charisma in Percy Jackson´s narrative, but the series definitely isn´t restricted to any age group. For fans of the Harry Potter series, I say give it a try.

What are, respectively, the best and worst parts of Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief?

Well, my favourite part is what Rick Riordan has done to the mythological characters – deducted, using plain logic, how they´d fare in the current society. And he´s done it well enough.

My least favourite part is that he does it constantly, and every time he´s finished, a new monster, god or demigod appears so he can restart his little magic trick. A trained word magician should know better than performing the same trick twice in front of the same audience.

For me specifically, was Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief worth buying?

I didn´t at first think it was, but after giving it this second chance, I´m fairly confident that I won´t be disappointed about the next four books, either.

***

On an irrelevant note, I´m not going to write any reviews for the next week. To get a chance to catch up with things, I´ve decided to avoid doing that in the holidays ('The Holidays' roughly defined as my holidays). If you want, you can spend a minute or two commenting with some suggestions for me to read (and eventually review). You should know my taste by now, I reckon.

Happy easter!