I tried to get an ARC for this one, but I caught Rick Riordan at the wrong time, and then The Lightning Thief was named the Today Show’s summer reading book, and now Rick Riordan is really much too busy for little ol’ me, and yeah, I know, blah blah blah.

The long and the short of it is: the library finally got it in, we checked it out, I waited for M to read it, and finally I got my turn.

Whew.

It was worth the wait, though. Instead of heading out with Percy on summer vacation at Camp Half-Blood, we pick up with Percy, Annabeth, Grover and Thalia (oops. Sorry, that was the end of the second book…) the week before winter solstice. They have a simple-ish assignment: pick up a couple of half-bloods from a school in Maine. As always in these books, it’s not quite that simple. Annabeth goes over a cliff, they meet a manticore, Artemis and her Hunters come to the rescue, and yes, all this ends up as another quest. This time, they’re off to save Artemis (who went hunting a monster and got trapped) and Annabeth. They, being: Percy, Zoe Nightshade, Grover, Bianca (one of the half-bloods they picked up), and Thalia. They meet gods (M is convinced that by the end of the series, Percy will have interacted with everyone in Greek mythology), they have close calls, they fight monsters, they fulfill prophecies.

My favorite chapter title: “I Have a Dam Problem” (though “I Wrestle Santa’s Evil Twin” comes a close second). They go off on that for a while in that chapter, much to my amusement.

“Let us find the dam snack bar,” Zoe said. “We should eat while we can.”
Grover cracked a smile. “The dam snack bar?”
Zoe blinked. “Yes. What is funny?”
“Nothing,” Grover said, trying to keep a straight face. “I could use some dam french fries.”

There were so many fun little moments in the book. Percy’s still a likable hero, even if he does have a tendency to be a bit impulsive. I have to admit, I missed Annabeth, though. Thalia’s cool and everything, but I liked the rapport between Percy and Annabeth. Though I suppose he had to get out on his own sometime. 🙂

M and I were talking about it earlier tonight, and we both agreed: the book has a great ending and we’re both curious and excited to know where Riordan’s going with the story from here. (As M put it: it’s really hard to be involved in a series and have to wait for the next book to find out what happens!)