The Lightning Thief

I can remember being one of the earliest converts to the Rick Riordan fan club. I found this book back when it was still an unknown series only sold at school book sales when it had the somewhat boring lightning-bolt-style-cover. Little did I know that I would soon fall in love with the characters of Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase and many others. To this day, with the exception of Harry Potter, I have yet to find a series that I have fallen in love with like Percy Jackson (as well as fallen out of love with, but we will get to that in due time.) Today, I wanted to spend the end of 2020 on a high note, and give this series a formal review. Now, almost 20 years since It was first published, I am glad to say that the first installment holds as much comfort, fun, and whimsy, as it did all those years ago.

I think one of the standout elements of this series, other than the incorporation of greek mythology, is how much inclusion there is for a book published in 2005. We may forget about this today, with diverse characters in books everywhere you look, but the idea that a main character has ADHD and dyslexia was extremely groundbreaking for its time, and in some ways it still is today. There is yet to be a series, to my knowledge, that manages to incorporate these elements so seamlessly without coming off as pandering to its audience. For younger readers who struggle with these issues, they can see themselves in Percy and understand how they too can become successful. This is an admirable quality, to be sure.

In terms of the actual book itself, there are many excellent scenes here, but I think the one thing that will stand out to me overall is just how powerful Percy is in this book. In the next series, The Heroes of Olympus, Percy is powerful, but he is mostly relegated to that of a goofball. Here, we see how powerful he is, as he uses the water to heal himself and to defeat the greek god Ares. Also, I loved the making of Percabeth, as Annabeth is embarrassed to go with Percy into the Tunnel of Love. As a reader who knows where these two end up, it just made me smile.

As for negatives, I don't think there are many of them for me, as I obviously love this book. The info dumps in the beginning can become a bit much, especially as some do not relate to the plot at all and, in hindsight, could have been done without. Also, when it comes to least favorite characters, I would have to say Grover gets my pick. There isn't anything really wrong with him, it is just that he pales in comparison with everyone else. I think that Riordan knew this, as he later replaced him with Coach Hedge in Heroes of Olympus series, who has far more personality compared to Grover.

Still, these complaints are minor compared to the awesomeness that is this series. Rereading this book felt great for me, as I just sat down and didn't even concentrate on my page count, or the amount of time I read, which can be very thrilling when it comes to just enjoying a story. In other words, this book made me read like a kid again, and as an adult, there is no higher praise than that. I give it a five out of five.