The Sea of Monsters: Book Review

I finished the second Percy Jackson book yesterday. Unemployment is good for catching up on reading at least. So brief non-spoilers summary. Percy starts getting dreams that his friend Grover is in trouble, and he and his friend Annabeth have to find the mythical Sea of Monsters to rescue him. This book is like a contemporary sequel to/highlights version of the Odyssey which I thought was rather clever. I laughed more in this book as well and I started to really love that all the heroes in these books are dyslexic (there's a reason for this which I also find amusing but reasonably credible).

I would highly recommend this book to a parent looking for biliotherapy for a dyslexic child, or to a deslexic child if they might be interested in the subject matter. I'm personally getting to really like the characters even if I find some of the situations less than credible. I'm not talking about the Greek gods either. Once again, I won't give any spoilers, but just some things Percy claimed to have done when he used to think he was normal and some aspects of his mother's personality didn't sit right with me. With crossovers between fantasy and the modern world, I think writers sometimes walk a fine line of credibility. The reason being, the real world, in my opinion, should still feel like the real world, but when some writers mix in fantasy, they think they can get away with the real world seeming less real. Unfortunately, when the real world doesn't follow its own rules, you've just created two fantasy worlds instead of one, and the real world is pretty lame as a fantasy world. I think Riordan sometimes falls into this trap, but not terminally so. Just enough for me to notice from time to time. Still, since this second book took place more in the alternate mythical world, I think it was easier for me to accept all the happenings.

Anyway, to sum things up, it's a good fast read that I highly recommend, but start with the first book The Lightning Thief!