Last day of school….Only one more day to go. Surely even I couldn’t mess that up.

As usual, I didn’t have a clue how wrong I was.

–pg 4

Other books in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series: Book 1, Book 2, Book 3, Book 4, Book 5

Book 2: the Sea of Monsters

 By Rick Riordan

In this sequel to the first book, Percy Jackson finds himself at yet another school. Grover isn’t here with him this time. Now, he’s a got a new friend, a kid named Tyson, who is well, different. Just before school gets out for the summer, Percy gets into a fight in gym class with some cannibals and he finds out that Tyson wasn’t exactly who he thought he was and that there is more trouble at Camp Half-Blood. The magical pine tree that protects the camp borders is dying. And the only way to save it is to sail through the perilous Sea of Monsters and bring back a cure— that is, if they don’t die on the way.

Action packed and filled with fun, this book was a worthy sequel!  (That sounded cheesy…)

I had thought when I was reading the first time that it wasn’t as good as the first, but I guess my memory must’ve gone wild on me because this book was pretty darn good. All our favorite characters have returned, and they’re better than before.

Percy is still our brave and troubled hero. He’s smart (kinda), courageous, and very, very funny; Percy’s narration is a blast to read. There were times when I had to stop reading and put the book down because I was laughing so hard.

Through Percy’s eyes, we see Annabeth struggle to get over a kind of monster-discrimination. I think that problem really strengthened her character because if you take the magical aspects out of it, accepting those who have hurt us (forgiveness I believe it is called) is a very hard thing to do and most people struggle with it. Actually, I think in this book, Annabeth grows more than Percy does. Well, I mean, she is taller than him, but her character gets more development time. Percy’s character tends to tack backseat and he becomes more of a comforter to her as she changes.

To keep this short, I’ll just say my favorite thing about this book and one thing I wish I could change. Bad news first: I wish that Riordan had changed the emotional tension when Percy found out that Camp Half-Blood was in trouble. It seemed like a “Here we go again,” moment and Percy didn’t come off as deeply troubled by this.

My favorite thing? The concept. I love the new spins on old myths and it’s so fabulously Greek. And the ending, I love that too; it’s fabulous, a real cliff hanger, but it gets you psyched for the next book (and at least you didn’t have to wait a year for it to come out!).

This book continues all the best parts of the Percy Jackson series, the humor, the writing, the action and the Greek myths. While the plot doesn’t add terribly to the over-arching storyline, it sets up some important themes, ideas and characters that will not fail to excite you. Middle books are the hardest to write– and the hardest to review. It’s often a curse of “What can I say that won’t totally give away the plot and that I didn’t say last time?” So despite this poor review, you’ll just have to take my word when I say it’s a totally enjoyable read.

Ri’s Rating:

QQQ/QQQQQ
3/5

0. Couldn’t get past chapter one for fear of wanting to kill myself. Book induced suicide…

1: Yuck. Ew. Below Average. Probably didn’t even read the middle and skipped to the end.

2. Ok. Would’ve been better if I’d written the ending and everything else.

3. Not bad at all. Very enjoyable. Quite nice. Recommendable.

4. My kind of book. Near ideal, but something was a little off (annoying names, bad ending, that sort of thing).

5. WOW. Makes me wonder why people watch T.V when this is out there. Really liked it. Don’t expect to see this often.

6 and above. What I want my book to be.