Percy Jaskson

I started reading this series called Percy Jackson and The Olympians. If you recall, a movie was just released. Considering the movie was based on a book and reviews mentioned the movie did not do the book justice I decided (in some of my spare time) I would read them. I've gotten through 2 of 5 books and these are my thoughts:

Unfortunately for the movie, it comes out after the immense success of Harry Potter, and as such, it is more than likely going to be judged by the Potter series. At first it seems a bit harsh to put the book up to Potter's standards but Riordan, the author, copies many ideas that Potter, and books before it, used much better.

Percy is your ordinary, everyday failure of a 6th grader. He gets in fights; he fails his classes; and always seems to be getting himself expelled. His educational failure is attributed to being ADHD and dyslexic, which is a good moral for children: "If you are failing classes then its not your fault!" But actually most children don't find out their father they have never met is actually Poseidon. That's right, the book says that being dyslexic and ADHD is attributed to his brain being hard wired for Ancient Greek and Battle. Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure. Being the son of Poseidon he has insanely overpowered water-based abilities. They then go on to tell you that his entire life is more or less a series of lies to try to mask his heritage.

One of the main problems of the series is the lack of decent story telling. Sure the writing is very vivid and captivating, but at the end of book you are left with a "that's it?" feeling. Not a "oh wow! I'd love to read more!" kind of thats-it but rather a "what the heck kind of story was that?!" Throughout the book Percy undergoes trials which is typical of adventure stories, however in Percy's case, the word "trial" is very liberal. Most challenges he near immediately know how to solve and does so without and difficulty. The entire book is just a cake walk for this 6th grader. Foreshadowing is one thing, but its too blatantly obvious when Percy has a trial ahead of himself. He is either walking to a fountain, rain, toilets, river, bridge, water park, another river, the beach, and yet another river. His enemies are too stupid to fight him AWAY from water.

One of the biggest problems I have with the series is that the author is always force-feeding you morals. In the second book, percy gets a retarded half-brother who is a cyclops and a spoon full of "mentally hand-capped does not mean he isn't physically capable and a good friend too!" I near wanted to vomit. Among all of the "America is so great" propaganda, obeying authority, and dad always knows best (even if he never has seen you before you turned 13) I tried very hard not to vomit.

Of course once you get passed all of the bad story telling and unbearable morals, the book IS actually enjoyable. The characters (besides Percy) are more or less believable. The author is very good at description and the books are very easy, fast reads. Is it worth buying? no, not really, but if you have a friend who has a copy and you aren't watching a good tv show then its a decent read.