The Lightning Thief
2005
- serie:percy_jackson_and_the_olympians
- fiction
- greek mythology
- juvenile fiction
- camps
- friendship
- fantasy fiction
- fantasy
- young adult fiction
- nyt:series_books=2007-07-21
The story
Twelve-year-old Percy Jackson is on the most dangerous quest of his life. With the help of a satyr and a daughter of Athena, Percy must journey across the United States to catch a thief who has stolen the original weapon of mass destruction—Zeus’ master bolt. Along the way, he must face a host of mythological enemies determined to stop him. Most of all, he must come to terms with a father he has never known, and an Oracle that has warned him of betrayal by a friend.
What it’s like
Brisk, funny, and sun-bleached in the way of a summer road trip: the voice is first-person and wisecracking, full of sneakers, diner booths, Greyhound buses and monster-infested motel stops, with Greek myth rendered as cheerfully modern clutter. It reads like a sprint more than a stroll, short chapters that each end on a hook, so it suits a long-haul flight, a lazy weekend afternoon, or a reluctant reader who wants momentum. The emotional register is warm and playful with an undertow of loneliness: a dyslexic, restless twelve-year-old who has always felt like an outsider slowly finds a place among people who understand him, and the core arc is a boy learning to trust his own strange heritage and the friends who stand beside him. Violence is frequent but cartoonish: monsters get skewered, bodies dissolve into gold dust, and fights are quick and bloodless, with fear that is more adventurous than dreadful. Some peril involves a beloved character's death, handled with restraint. It is well suited to middle-grade and young-teen readers, and to adults who want an easy, funny, unpretentious adventure with a mythology hook.
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