A review by inhonoredglory
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

5.0

I knew about this franchise for a long time thanks to Tumblr and never got around to reading the book. Decided to this time after I fell back into a middle-grade nostalgia hole thanks to my re-reading Alex Rider (after seeing its amazing new adaptation!). And I must say I'm blown away. This is proper fandom material. Beautiful unique take on the mythic world, with all the snark and irreverence worthy of urban fantasy. But with enough reverence where it mattered too. (Percy feeling the gravity of being the son of Poseidon never gets old.) The key to this whole thing is the social undercurrent running through the god metaphor: We see the gods through the eyes of their children, and we see them as neglectful parents, too busy with their big lives to care or love the products of their selfish dalliances. And Percy, he longs for a father, like any kid would. And yet he hates the unknown man who left his mom. Knowing that man is Poseidon doesn't change the ambivalence of feeling he has towards him––but slowly, over the course of knowing him more, Percy comes to something of an understanding. But not to love, not yet. Poseidon is a god after all, and still the man who left that hole in his family so long ago.

I really enjoyed the humor in this, the juxtaposition of the mundane and the deific. I can't wait for the Disney Plus series, which I'm sure will redeem the (as I've heard) disaster of a film.

On some personal notes... My sister jumped on board with the whole America-is-the-center-of-Western-civilization schtick and stuck with me the whole way through. (Yay!) Camp Half-Blood is Hogwarts. The 600th floor of the Empire is Platform 9 3/4. The cross-country road trip is Gaiman's American Gods. And LA as the entrance to the Underworld? At the Santa Monica pier? Too freaking good.