When fantasy elements bind in reality; we know a boring world of reality & then... magic revealed! or myths, travel between universes. I live in that world & I feel happy. I loved seeing Percy interact with his father Poseidon, and his bond with the other campers and his half-brother. Add to that almost all the dialogues feel cheesy, and the plots of all books have holes that may go unnoticed by a young reader but not by most , if not all , adult readers . I read the five volumes of PJ and the Olympians to my 9 year old granddaughter. She absolutely loved them all, so this rating is an average of her 5++++ and my 3+ ish stars.

Nico di Angelo- Oh my gods, Nico. I really love Nico. One of my favorite characters of all time and probably ties with Percy for my favorite male character. He had to go through so much at such a young age.

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Annabeth and Percy were just great, friends naturally turned into romantic interests, (even though I wish it hadn’t happened at the VERY end of the series, it would’ve been nice to see them as boyfriend/girlfriend for more than a few paragraphs). But here’s hoping they turn up in the spinoff books!

reread "Sea of Monsters". Book wonderful, doesn't deserve it but review will be overshadowed by having just seen the movie. I never understand the Lynch-Dune Syndrome: omitting awesome, cinematic action sequences from the book to be replaced with lamer made-up action sequences in the movie. Doesn't make it more exciting or anything... just dumbed down. Rereading the book, among other things, was a sequence of: "Ohhhhh yeah, that's why that bit makes sense…" One of the odder (and to me, more angering) things the movie did was keeping Grover in the wedding dress to fool Polyphemus, but have P. think G. was a "housemaid" rather than prospective wife. Seriously? That's along the lines of "PATROCLUS WAS NOT ACHILLES'S COUSIN, 'TROY'!!" …Although I do appreciate that Annabeth took the Odysseus role, from the Sirens to the Nobody ploy. Very cool. Sure, there are three friends going on dangerous fantastical adventures and saving the people they love slash the world. And yes, there are also lessons to be learned from these adventures. But that's where the similarities end. This series is right up there with Harry Potter and Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander series as my top favorite series. Each re-visit is dropping in on some old friends and re-living their adventures/lives. I love how myths wrapped up in reality & how this fiction built up. & monsters, rules of this world, Demigods, villains... everything seems real & realistic! I love realistic fictions. when you can just simply imagine the story is actually happening somewhere in this world. U know what I mean?😁

Christmas Gifts

Thalia Grace-I've always loved Thalia. She kind of reminded me of myself in a way that is kind of hard to put into words, although Annabeth reminds me of myself much more. Thalia is such a strong and amazing character and I wish we got to see more of her. The demigods rush to the rescue to find that Grover has made an important discovery: two powerful half-bloods whose parentage is unknown. But that’s not all that awaits them. The titan lord Kronos has devised his most treacherous plot yet, and the young heroes have just fallen prey.

Of course, I can't help comparing to Harry Potter (though that's kind of silly, since kids-discovering-they're-really-some-kind-of-supernatural-being is a genre that existed long before). That's okay, PJ doesn't suffer by the comparison. Like Rowling, Riordan is excellent writing engaging adventures that are fast, enjoyable reads; and have plots that build consistently and elaborately to surprising reveals, within each book and across the series. A few contrasts that I really appreciate in PJ: I like the world continuity of using a single mythology (very well!), and the bringing of mythical Greek elements to present-day NYC are very clever, from cultural and humorous standpoints as well as educational. I also enjoy how the plot, without betraying any of the information that's established and developed through the book, usually ends up to be about something quite unexpected and different from the conclusions the characters and reader were drawing all along. Likewise, there's more room for characters to move outside expectations, sympathies, and archetypes, but never randomly or in betrayal of how they've been established. Unfortunately the book always feels like it was meant for young adults and no one else . It falls into typical YA book tropes and never really recovers , with events and characters action falling into a very childish behaviour, always risk free and filled with silly mistakes that really makes an adult reader groan . Apollo-Enough with the haikus Apollo. I can't wait to read The Hidden Oracle to get more of Apollo's weird personality. Also, I was a little disappointed that he hadn’t made use of the USA’s actual Mt. Olympus, which I can almost see from the end of my street. That would have been cool, but maybe it wasn’t in his travel guide.) Chiron-Chiron was a great teacher for many great heroes and I am pretty sure that he became a father figure to many many heroes.But as I read the rest of the series (one after another, without a break!), I became increasingly impatient. Not so much because the battle themes were repetitive (they were), but as Percy aged towards 16, one volume per year, the female characters in particular became harder to take. Every one of them, even the goddesses, started to act the drama queen, just as Percy became more and more the upstanding resolute hero. OK, I know Riordan is trying to catch the interest of North American teens here, but this is fantasy, and in pandering to his target market’s stereotypes, he really missed an opportunity for some role modelling. my top fav series has another features too: they are about the subjects I actually love to know about in science. (magic, parallel universes, Myths) & also they involved many awesome characters. Okay, so I'm not gonna talk about the plot cause then I'll just be spoiling it, but here's something about all the characters:

Luke Castellan- There isn't much I can say about Luke without spoiling things, but then again that's kind of this whole review. Although Luke made some bad choices, he made up for them in the end. Do go into this expecting considerable amounts of fun and excitement and something wildly refreshing. Okay, that last one mostly applies to me, I think, because I tend to shy away from both MG novels and works inspired by classical mythology because of mostly unfunded prejudices (get your shit together, Nina, good lord). So to me, this type of story was fairly new, and honestly felt like a breath of fresh air. All the adventure, and the fighting, and the monsters, and the life-or-death situations? I dig. A lot. Hermes-I really like George and Martha. Hermes is really funny and is actually one of my favorite deities in the Greek Myths. happy & sad emotions are essential for every great stories. I love to have tears of Joy, or my heart wrenches during reading a book & Riordan knows how to make us cry, even over a not-important character we don't care about.

Books Multibuys

Gods and mythical creatures are tossed around without a clear sense of coherence. Alliances are not built up, things keep popping up with the self-named 'heroes' running after them. To preserve my sanity (and where Ms. eagle-eyes wasn’t reading along) I omitted the exact route from the Williamsburg Bridge to downtown Manhattan, the giant pig’s taking a flying right “at East 42nd St to 5th Avenue” and many more. Did Riordan write this with a Lonely Planet guide open? Sheesh! I really wish I’d read this series when I was around twelve and feel a nostalgic connection towards it. Because if I can love it even at twenty three, I know I would’ve just adored it for the intended age. The same with Harry Potter. First time I saw this series, I was passing the book section at work and the movie cover caught my eye (I think the movie was out not long after I finished the book). The title and synopsis immediately intrigued me and on a whim I bought it on my next break.