The Lighting Thief - Rick Riordan

Tittle: The lightning thief

Series: Percy Jackson and the Olympians

Author: Rick Riordan

Genre: Middle grade, Children’s fiction, adventure, Greek mythology, friendship

Publisher: Disney Hyperion Books

Pages: 377

Format: Digital (Kindle edition)

Language: English

Rating: 3.5/5

“The lightning thief” is the first book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series written by Rick Riordan. This is a quite popular series for children, especially in the US.

Percy Jackson life changes one day as he and his classmates where visiting the MET. Suddenly one of his teachers turned into a monster and attacked him; however later on no one even remember that teacher. He was sure he hasn’t imagined it all but everything pointed to that conclusion. On the next few days he had nightmares about that day and that made him unable to concentrate, to the point that he ended up being expelled from the school.

When he gets home, he and his mother take a trip to the coast, where his mother met his father. They got attacked by a monster that looked a lot like the Minotaur from the Greek mythology. His friend Grover appears to help them, but his legs are not human; he is a satyr. The Minotaur kills his mother and him and Grover managed to escape into a safe place. He wakes up in a camp where half-bloods live and train. He will have to discover who out of the twelve Greek gods his father is. Moreover, once he finds it he will have to go on a quest to prevent a war between the three great gods.

“The lighting thief” was an interesting book. The characters where really well portrayed and the turns into the myths were really well done. Since I love mythology it was quite impossible for me not to like this book, however I was a little disappointed. The plot started quite slow and boring, it really set the story in place, but it was quite tedious. However, once the quest starts the book got better and I really enjoyed. The thing I might have like the most was how the myths were brought to the present by the author. I also really liked Percy’s character and how he perfectly portrayed a hero from the Greek mythology that does not fear anything except losing the ones he loves. I liked how special the friendship between he, Grover and Annabeth became in such a short period of time, and how they were ready to put their friendship first in many occasions, like when Annabeth sais to Percy that she didn’t know what her mother would do but she was going to fight on his side. The fact that the only thing I did not enjoy was the beginning, because I considered it too long, made me want to keep with the series since this introduction was maybe necessary on this first installment but it wouldn’t be in the next ones.

All in all, “The lightning thief” was a good children’s book, which I would recommend to read. However you have to keep in mind that it was written for kids and that is noticeable. If you know kids in your family who have not read it encourage them to do so.