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Josie
read and liked
Mark's
review of The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1):
"My sister recommended this series and I was pretty interested in it once I heard a basic summary of the plot. I must say, I was thoroughly disappointed.
The concept in itself is very creative. Son of a Greek god in modern times. He is dysl...more
My sister recommended this series and I was pretty interested in it once I heard a basic summary of the plot. I must say, I was thoroughly disappointed.
The concept in itself is very creative. Son of a Greek god in modern times. He is dyslexic because he is meant to read ancient greek. That's clever. The translation of Greek gods to 21st, some were pretty well done, except for a few details here and there (a greek god would sick robot spiders against his enemies? Really?) The concept had promise. I, however, find the story horribly executed.
First off, I couldn't really get into the narrative voice. The narrator, 6th grade Percy Jackson, sounds more like a 45 year old man trying to sound like a 6th grader. I guess the author thought that if he wrote short sentences that ended abruptly, he would sound right. I didn't agree.
Secondly, Percy's character development just didn't sit well with me. I just didn't like him. And he definitely overcame obstacles a little too easily. It's the first book and he already defeated several mythical beasts AND went one on one with the god of War himself and won impressively. That is quite a 6th grader. This deflated alot of the tension from the story. This kid obviously can take anything on, why should I keep reading.
Third, I just couldn't help but notice that so many elements of the this story are just down right rip offs of Harry Potter. Seriously Rick, c'mon. Here are just a few that you can't help but notice:
- Percy has two close friends, one is the know it all girl(Hermione), and the other is a bumbling guy(Ron).
- Percy attends a Half-Blood camp where other half-bloods like him train(Hogworts).
- The camps are broken in different bunks(Houses) which compete against each other in games, most famously Capture the Flag(Quittich)where the winner has their banners hung everywhere.
- One house is full of mean kids who Percy doesn't get along with(Slytherin).
- Percy and friends utilize an invisibility cap(invisibility cloak).
- At the end, it is revealed that Kronos, described as a great evil of the past, might be returning(Voldomort).
Come on Rick. I know there is no such thing as an original idea anymore, and that everything has been done at one time or another. But this series' structure is straight up cut and paste. Maybe this changes alot more in the following books, but I guess I wont find out. It's one and done for me.
O BTW, Hyperion did a horrible job editing this book. There never ever should be typos in a published book, which the book has a few of. I guess they were too busy getting the movie deal in place that they didn't have time to give it a once over.
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