Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (Book 1)by Rick RiordanHi, my name is Cat and I'm going to be a total fangirl about this book. Holy wow was this an amazing book. You know what I find is the best kind of book? A book that I think nothing of and never even look twice at in the store, a book that I have written off as having absolutely no appeal to me and then seeing a review that explains more about the book and picking it up myself. Then, when I read it? I am completely floored by how amazing it is.This is exactly what happened to me with this book. It's a series I have noticed on the shelves of the bookstore. It's one of those ones that generally has a display in the young reader section. But the covers of the book totally put me off. I thought "Meh, that's some boring boy book" in the back of my mind and never even picked one off the shelf to read the back.Then I saw a review on my friend Monkey's blog and her review spoke about how much she enjoyed it and shed some light on the subject matter for me - Greek Mythology. I love myths, I just wish that I had been able to retain more and do better in my high school, college and university classes on the subject matter. I love the idea of Mount Olympus and Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, and all the other gods. I loved listening to the stories, and this suddenly made The Lightning Thief seem so much more interesting to me.Back in November when I was wandering around the store with a bunch of coupons I picked up the first book in this series as a sort of "this will get me to my $50 limit so I can get whatever percentage off!" filler book. It has sat on my TBR bookshelf up until yesterday when after having a dream about this book on New Year's Eve I thought it might be a sign that I should read it. (I honestly dreamt about this book, it was so vivid. I was carrying it around with me and the cover kept showing up as a vision or something. Weird.)For those of you who don't know this series (although I think I'm one of the last to discover it) it's about a 12-year old boy named Percy Jackson who tend to have things happen around him all the time and get him in to trouble. He discovers at the end of the school year that he's a half-blood - a human child with a Greek God as a parent. Percy is sent to Half-Blood summer camp where he's trained to defend himself and is lucky enough to be sent on a quest. Along with his friends Grover (a satyr) and Annabeth (daughter of Athena), Percy embarks on a life-0r-death quest to find some stolen God property.From the first chapter I knew I would love this book. It was quick-witted, funny, goofy, adventurous and not to mention the chapter titles themselves were all kinds of awesome. (Chapter 3 - "Grover Expectantly Loses his Pants" or Chapter 12 - "We Get Advice From a Poodle") The chapter titles had me giggling and more times than I can count on my hands did I laugh out loud during this story. I often read parts out-loud to my husband and I am trying to convince him that he HAS to read this book. It's totally up his alley. It's sort of like a toned down, for kids, Christopher Moore-type humour. He'll enjoy it if he reads it and I shall bug him until he does!Also thanks to Monkey's blog I discovered through the comments that there's a movie coming out based on the first book in February. A little google research confirmed February 12, 2010 as the release date. I watched the trailers on the website and it does look cool and I am excited though it did give me advance warning that this movie will NOT be like the book. Many scenes in the previews seemed very different and the biggest thing for me based on the preview? Annabeth is a brunette with straight hair and NOT a blond with curls as described in the book. I am a little miffed about that. I hate when they change too much for movies and when it comes to what a main character should look like? I just don't agree.But I digress... I plan on making a trip to the bookstore when we run our errands tomorrow to buy books 2 - 4 of this series. I have gift cards after all. I should make use of them.And what a brilliant start to my year in reading to have the first books of the year be this fantastic! I hope that bodes well for my entire year!Percy Jackson & the Olympians series