The Lightning Thief by Rick RiordanRating: 2.5 stars (out of 5)
Genre: fantasy, YA
Challenge: A-Z (author)
Review: My first problem with this book is that there was a lot of talk about Greek mythology in a Latin class. That just seemed like an odd setup. The author could have made it any class he wanted, and chose to make such an odd pair. It grated on me every time it came up.
Although the idea of using Greek mythology is quite clever, the story itself is fairly trite. Our "hero" is possibly one of the dumbest 6th-graders ever. It could be that he was written that way on purpose so as to allow for long expositions by other characters, but I found it annoying that he could not pick up on what was staring him in the face.
Perhaps my many problems with this book came from the fact that I listened to it, and the narrator decided to tell the whole story in his surfer-dude voice. Any seriousness there may have been to the story itself was completely driven out by this. If this is the reason I didn't like the book, it's a pity, because I'd heard really good things about this series. If I ever decide to read the next two books, I'll make sure to actually read them myself.
1 comment:
I am listening to this right now and I feel the same as you about the narrator. The story isn't grabbing me either--I think I'm going to give up. My son loves the series, so I think it's one to reserve for the kids, and help them learn a bit about Greek mythology.
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