Just looked back at this and found "boo-coo" typos. My apologies to those who've been by and said some version of "what?"... Hope I caught them all.

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If you've seen my other reviews of the books in this series you know I've been disappointed with them. As I've noted I suppose that I've recently read some very good Ya fiction and these might have suffered by comparison. I decided when I read the volume before this to try and view them somewhat more, tolerantly.

First, I think they may need to be looked at more as "Juvenile" books than as "Youth" books. I was (and really still am though I've tried to back away from it somewhat) bothered greatly by the faulty views that children may bring away from these books on several items. One obvious thing is the Greek Mythological system that the stories are loosely based on. But the author's calm acceptance of things like plagiarism, his (somewhat) "cheap shots" at other (better) books that children could be exposed to, and a few other things also gnaw at me (I suppose you get the idea).

In this book some (all?) of the problems continue, Percy is still written as dense as a brick at some times. I know the writer was doing it to allow certain things to be "said" etc. but he draws it out to a place where it's frustrating to watch Percy not get what's going on (he's supposed to be the one primarily responsible for saving the world and he's just so "thick". Of course the author seems to get it a little as he has Zeus comment on it here once....okay so I cracked a joke. You'll get that when/if you read the book.). There is also a "plot device" he's used throughout the series that got to the point of "ridiculousness". Everybody keeps secrets from everybody else. Okay, they needed to keep the "details" of "The Great Prophecy" from Percy (though everybody else [and their brother] seems to have known those details) but why does EVERYBODY who asks a simple question about anything get some enigmatic answer. Question: "What's that coming over the hill?" Answer: "Do we have any Ambrosia left?" It's as if every person in the book is "hording" their secrets.

I suppose I can see why kids like these books and were my kids still young I imagine my son would have liked them, but again I'd have made sure he understood that Centaurs weren't noted for being "Party Ponies", Satyrs weren't exactly noted for their ability to find and protect children (ask Orpheus' wife Eurydice how she died), Artemus and the Huntresses were not "little girl" versions of Peter Pan and the Lost Boys...I could go on, but you get the idea.

These are/this is, a book for young readers using characters that have been sort of made up from whole cloth. He does manage to show some of the selfishness and capriciousness of the mythological deities, but that seems to be as close as he comes to staying with the mythology. Still, they are adventurous books for kids and can be viewed as "just stories". The writing isn't up to a lot I've read, but as I said I can see why kids like it. So I'll go back up to 3 stars here. I recommend you read it with your kids if they don't already have a grounding in classic literature and let them enjoy the story...enjoy it with them if it's your cup of tea. I'm sure many think I'm overly picky here and that's fine. I hope you get all the fun you can here, I'd just not want you (or your children) to miss what can be gotten from the stories that have come down through time. Personally I always liked the Norse myths better...but when I was young we covered them all in elementary school and were sort of able to compare 3 systems that were the most commonly taught. We all studied the Greek myths, the Roman myths (which the Romans had from melding older stories with their version of the Greek. Rick Riordan built on this as part of his "Greek deities moving west" theme.)and then the Norse myths, which Riordan seems to have missed maybe for the best. These (Norse and Icelandic myths, stories and epics) Tolkien, Lewis and others have used to great effect. Sorry, carried away again, if you like these, I'm happy for you, I don't hate them, I'm just disappointed.