The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The movies, at least the ones that I saw, were good. Not great, but good. The kids were too old. The Disney+ series, I quite liked a lot, and it made me interested in reading the book again. I’ve had the book in and out of my reading list for quite a long time. I want to like this story. I think the idea is solid, and I think that the concepts and situations are all good.
My major problem with it is that to me, it’s a snooze fest, but also exactly the kind of book I’m supposed to love. Moderately disconcerting.
I don’t like my opinion, but I am determined to give it the benefit of the doubt. I’ve already got book two set aside, but I don’t know if I feel the need to read it before the second season of the Disney+ series (which I hear is already moving forward) comes up. I think that somehow seeing that, might be what inspires me to want to read the second book. I just don’t feel any urgency to get into the next one, and that’s kind of bugging me. Part of my issue is the first-person point-of-view. Not that it’s Percy, but I’m banking on his voice, sounding better as he grows older. Despite all the god-like powers he has, his voice is that of a whiny kid.
I also resent (lightly) the crack in chapter 10 about the furies having Southern accents from “somewhere farther south than Georgia.” I’m from Georgia, from Atlanta. We from that region have an incredibly distinctive, yet neutral accent. It’s a strange bubble to come from. I felt it was a slightly New Yorker elitist line, and it made me feel like the writer thinks people from the South are monsters. Probably unintentional, but it made me less inclined to root for Percy if this is his real opinion. He also seems inclined to dismiss overweight people. I imagine I will write and put into a book something that unintentionally makes someone else feel the same way. I hope not, but it’s probably an eventual truth, that I’d like to avoid.
Is it bad that I think Hades should have killed Percy and the other kids, then appointed his skeleton to lead his army and taken the bolt for himself?
My books are still nothing compared to the success of this one, but it still seems like this is a lesson in how I should strengthen my characters.
View all my reviews
About The Author
