Book review: The Lightning Thief

[rhu]

So apparently there's this wildly successful series of books about a kid named Percy Jackson; I'm told the first one has been made into a film that was just released. (What do I know? The last film I saw was Frost/Nixon, and before that, Wordplay.)

The first I'd heard of Percy Jackson was when Tani read the first book, The Lightning Thief by Ron Riordan. He loved it, and his description of it at the dinner table sounded interesting. Since I like to spot-check what my kids are reading anyway, I picked it up.

And?

Whoa!

That was a well-written, entertaining book, reinterpreting and evoking classic Greek mythology without "dumbing it down" at all or coddling the reader. I'm impressed, and looking forward to the rest of the series.

Comments

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I borrowed the book from a friend last year and enjoyed it immensely. At some point I'll read the others...

[lucretia-borgia.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's good to know! We've had Seth's chavruta's daughter, who's now, what, 16? wildly recommending the book(s), but it's hard to know whether her "age appropriate" is mine, and I'm too swamped to pre-read random books. Thanks for the recommendation.

[cellio]

Thanks for the tip. I hadn't heard of any of it until I saw a trailer for the movie recently.