The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson & the Olympians, #1)

by Rick Riordan

Twelve-year-old Percy Jackson is about to be kicked out of boarding school . . . again. No matter how hard he tries, he can't seem to stay out of trouble. But can he really be expected to stand by and watch while a bully picks on his scrawny best friend? Or not defend himself against his pre-algebra teacher when she turns into a monster and tries to kill him? Of course, no one believes Percy about the monster incident; he's not even sure he believes himself.

Until the Minotaur chases him to summer camp.

Suddenly, mythical creatures seem to be walking straight out of the pages of Percy's Greek mythology textbook and into his life. The gods of Mount Olympus, he's coming to realize, are very much alive in the twenty-first century. And worse, he's angered a few of them: Zeus's master lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the prime suspect.

Now Percy has just ten days to find and return Zeus's stolen property, and bring peace to a warring Mount Olympus. On a daring road trip from their summer camp in New York to the gates of the Underworld in Los Angeles, Percy and his friends–one a satyr and the other the demigod daughter of Athena–will face a host of enemies determined to stop them. To succeed on his quest, Percy will have to do more than catch the true thief: he must come to terms with the father who abandoned him; solve the riddle of the Oracle, which warns him of failure and betrayal by a friend; and unravel a treachery more powerful than the gods themselves.

Reviewed by nitzan_schwarz on

3 of 5 stars

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After Re-Read
I had to take down a star, from 4 to three. The reason was that it took me months to finish this book a second time, and any book I have to force myself to read a second time, deserves one stars fewer.
Don't get me wrong - I love Riordan's writing style, and his wit, and I finished this book in a day the first time I read it (the entire series in a week).
I don't know why it was so hard to read it a second time, but, I mean, I got to the last chapter--than just stopped reading and put the book aside for months. How does that make sense? One chapter, and it was so easy to drop the second time I've read it. Much too easy. Not to mention that I had to re-start this book twice because the first time I stopped after three chapters or so. The second time stretched over months.
So, yeah. I love Percy. I love Rick. I just had too much trouble re-reading this for my liking, which is why this became 3-stars.
Sorry Percy! I still love you, and can't wait to read Son of Neptune!

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