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.
Clearly it's taken me a while to jump on this ship. I'm glad I read this though. I wish I had read it when I was a little younger because I probably would have liked it more but it was still good. I loved that this book is about the Gods and Goddesses, as I say in every review about them. I just love it when people incorporate them into stories. It's so much fun! I like that in this book the characters are the sons and daughters of the gods so they all have some god like qualities. I was surprised that the main character Percy was the son of Poseidon because I figured the obvious choice was the son of Zeus right? It was still really cool.
I really liked all the characters. I found Percy a little unrealistic though because he accepted who he was without question and goes on a quest right away. I don't exactly think that's the way it would happen but it made for a good story. I really liked Grover, who wouldn't though, and Annabelle was pretty cool too. I think that this was a good read and everyone should probably read it. It's being compared a lot to Harry Potter but so far with this one book I don't think it's up with Harry Potter yet. Harry Potter can be read at any age and loved but I find this book hits a slightly younger audience.
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