Percy Jackson and The Sea Of Monsters by Rick Riordan | Spoilery Book Review (2/5)

Percy Jackson and The Sea Of Monsters by Rick Riordan | Spoilery Book Review (2/5)

Heyo Bookaholics!

The Journey Continues…

This was meant to go up on Monday, but I have been super busy with assignments, work and an interview that I had on today, I had to postpone this until today. Please enjoy x

The second of five quests. Three more to go. This book was another that I had a vague idea about the plot points due to the movie, but as always I remained open to all the changes and as always the book is better.

percy jackson and the sea of monsters book cover - Percy Jackson and The Sea Of Monsters by Rick Riordan | Spoilery Book Review (2/5)

Blurb:

The heroic son of Poseidon makes an action-packed comeback in the second must-read installment of Rick Riordan's amazing young readers series. Starring Percy Jackson, a "half blood" whose mother is human and whose father is the God of the Sea, Riordan's series combines cliffhanger adventure and Greek mythology lessons that results in true page-turners that get better with each installment. 

In this episode, The Sea of Monsters, Percy sets out to retrieve the Golden Fleece before his summer camp is destroyed, surpassing the first book's drama and setting the stage for more thrills to come.

REVIEW!

It’s more fun when you’ve read the myths before a retelling, especially since Percy Jackson is not a retelling but an extension on the stories that are. The incorporation of the Golden Fleece into this novel was and still remains to be one of my favourites Greek Myths.

In this novel, we meet again with Percy and his friends, one of whom is in danger and creates an emotional bond between himself and Percy to send crazy dream SOS messages. We truly see how much of a best friend Percy is, sacrificing his own life and place at Camp Half-Bood to pursue a quest that is not his own despite the threats given by the camp director against his life.

It’s near the beginning of the novel when Percy does some serious foreshadowing (or not really) by telling us that he didn’t realise that he wouldn’t be going back home to celebrate the end of the school year with his mother (again). Here, on the last day of school, through a very oblivious 13-year-old Percy we meet Tyson the Cyclops whom Percy will soon realise is his half-brother.

I really love this book – of the two and a half I’ve read so far – as it shows Percy as a true 13-year-old prepubescent teenager who is learning how to deal with people’s judgement, fitting into groups and standing up for what is right.

At first, Percy loves his friend Tyson – because that’s all he was to Percy when he was at school – he didn’t know any that the really tall and academically slow kid in his year level was a baby cyclops. No way, it took Annabeth and her Hermione-esque attitude to let Percy know that his friend was a cyclops, stereotypically scary and murderous. But not Tyson.

This is where I make the really obvious link between Annabeth and Hermione, as both women are so well versed in the world that they belong to, that they forget that others are not and say things as if they’re the most common of knowledge. This makes them prone to stereotypes – though in Annabeth’s case experience backs up her prejudice – and it makes them slow to admit they’re wrong. Both girls are so strong-willed and not at all oblivious like their main males – Harry and Percy – seem to be.

The most normal way in which Percy deals with the bullying and isolation from his peers would really resonate with the demographic that this novel is geared towards. The way his anger toward his brother turns around to longing when he goes missing, presumed dead, demonstrates a change of character which follows through to even when he goes back to camp.

I may have nearly cried when Tyson ‘died’ though.

I also may’ve nearly cried when Tyson formed a bond with Rainbow the water horse.

This novel was emotional in all the sweet ways.

  • Stereotypes were broken: Tyson didn’t want to be a bad Cyclops and helped defeat the horrid Polyphemus – the badest of the bad cyclops’.
  • Tyson being cute and taking a liking to Annabeth who didn’t want anything to do with him, but then came around a little bit.
  • Percy standing up for his brother and protecting him from all the bullies, and in turn, Tyson made Percy a cool ass shield that was the product of an expert blacksmith with the crafting skills of a God Cyclops.
  • Everything about the progression of the relationship between Tyson and Percy.

Not everything was sunny rainbows. Obviously, they had to cross paths with Luke, the Half-Blood turned bad with a new way of thinking that would take down all of Olympus and the Western World with it. The death of the camp was the whole reason the quest was given in the first place too.

I should probably also mention the new camp director, Tantalus, of whom resides in the Underworld forever being tempted by food an water only to have it be taken from him whenever he tries to take it.

You might be thinking whatever has this to do with the story? 

Well, it’s a fun way to teach your kids that if they kill someone, cook them and serve them to the Gods they’ll be tortured for eternity never been able to taste food or drink water. So kids, don’t kill people and feed them to other people. Also, Tantalus was like a super grumpy dude with a Severus Snape style grudge on Percy and I think he just wanted to see the world burn, with bringing back Death Chariot Races, and not caring about the dying tree that protected everyone at camp.

I loved how sweet the ending was, because despite how cruel Clarise was/ is to Percy, he still gave her a second chance, gave her the opportunity to be recognised and loved by everyone by letting her walk into camp with the Golden Fleece and receive all the praise. Something Harry Potter didn’t do (sorry I had to put that in there…).

★ Rating ★

I rated this novel, a ★★★★☆ (4/5 stars). I’m not going to use the same ‘I-don’t-like-the-Greek-Myths’ reason this time, because I actually really like the story of Jason’s journey to get the Golden Fleece; and as mentioned I really believe that the true-to-reality emotions that Percy experienced through the book and the mature way in which he dealt with everything would benefit the children this book is aimed towards.

Thank you so much for reading!

2 e1530100090524 - Percy Jackson and The Sea Of Monsters by Rick Riordan | Spoilery Book Review (2/5)

? read the series?

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With Love Bree xx

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