The Lightning Thief the First Book of the Percy Jackson & the Olympians Series

The first book of the series, Percy Jackson & the Olympians, is named The Lightning Thief. I thought it was a great novel because it combines adventure, action, comedy and mythology. (I love mythology). I learned most of what I know about mythology from this series.

I really enjoyed reading about most of the things in this book. I liked how Percy was the son of Poseidon, and was being followed by mythical creatures ever since he was a little boy, how his being a half-blood, (Half human, half god), caused him to have all sorts of problems that got him into trouble or danger in school. At the Yancy Academy for example, when he got this wave of rage as a girl was picking on his friend Grover, (who was a satyr disguised as a human), and Percy somehow made water from a fountain push the girl backwards onto the ground. The teacher/chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, who was a creature in disguise took Percy to an empty room and turned into a demon bat like thing and attacked Percy. Mr. Brunner, another creature in disguise helped him defeat Mrs. Dodds. It was a great fight scene and it was just the first chapter.

As I kept reading the book, it just got better and better, and the more I read, the more I could not put it down. I loved all the fight scenes in the book. They were great. My favorites were the Percy vs. Ares fight, the Percy, Annabeth, and Grover vs. Medusa fight, and the whole capture the flag scenario. Those three fights rocked in my opinion.

Besides all the action, the struggles and obstacles Percy, Grover and Annabeth faced on their adventure, or quest as it's called in the book, were pretty cool to. Their trip from their home city of New York all they way to Los Angeles really entertained me. When I read about the Lotus Hotel and Casino, I wished I could have gone and lived there. The freedom of being able to play a bunch of awesome video games, with an awesome room and restaurants just sounded like heaven. Sure it was bad for them because they had a certain time to complete the quest and the Lotus Hotel slowed time down a lot, but that place sounds amazing. Other than the Lotus Hotel, when the trio of friends went to the Gateway Arch, I thought that it would be a cool place to visit one day. I enjoyed their visit even more when Percy had to fight the Echidna monster mother. That is when Percy learned that he could breathe underwater because he had to jump from the top of the Arch and into the river below. It would have been cool if Percy could have defeated Echidna, but oh well, I'm not complaining.

All their glorious sight seeing and happy times were ruined when they visited the Underworld. That place just sounded so miserable and depressing. Moving on from that, I finished the book with no questions or things that I thought could have been better. It was a great novel, and I was thrilled to know that there was a second book to the series that I had to read.