The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1)
Rick Riordan
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Review
Rating:5/10
I can’t beleive I’ve been reading this book for over a year, but I have. This is the problem — once I start a book I feel obligated to finish it. It’s a silly thing to do, and The Lightning Thief is my punishment.
The Lightning Thief sits firmly in Harry Potter’s shadow, never daring to be as good, and constantly reminds you what a truly gifted writer J.K. Rowling really is.
The Lightning Thief is about a boy who discovers he’s the son of a Greek god. All of Greek mythology, it turns out, is true, and the gods and demigods are alive and well and living in the modern world. The Gods are still their same old petty, bickering, jealous selves, and the book’s protagonist, young Percy Jackson, is accused of stealing Zeus’s lightning bolt. He embarks on a quest to recover it and prevent the gods from going to war.
It could all be great fun, but Riordan is not a nimble writer. His prose is clear and Percy’s 1st-person narration has a strong and consistent voice, but the kid’s smart-alecky attitude becomes grating after a few chapters and is nearly unbearable by book’s end. He’s supposed to be a modern teenager, I get it, but he comes off as a jerk you wouldn’t want to spend an hour with, let alone the length of a book. The child hero’s lack of humility and vulnerability make him especially unappealing.
Worse, Riordan fails to weave the rich world of Greek mythology convincingly into our own. Comparisons with Harry Potter are unavoidable. Where Rowling managed to seamlessly integrate the magic world with the mundane, enriching both, Riordan just sort of smashes the two together, usually tucking the Greek world away in some out-of-the-way shop. There’s no sense here that it’s really part of the bigger picture. The Greek world feels quite small and unimportant.
Where Riordan really falls flat is the story structure itself. Nearly every chapter is a self-contained episode, especially once the quest is under way. Go to a shop, diner, or casino, get attacked by a random monster, make your escape, end of chapter. Repeat over and over again. Rather than add to the depth of the world, minor characters must float in and out of the story quickly, as they are only there to service a small episode. Tension never builds because actions rarely have an effect beyond the next few pages. We never feel engaged because our heroes are always safe by the end of the chapter.
The book ends with a pair of draggy chapters that can’t quite get to the point. The “off-screen” resolution of Percy’s mother’s dilemma is especially unsatisfying.
Overall, The Lightning Thief fails to live up to it’s potential. Middle School kids will probably like it well enough, but they deserve better.
View this book's Amazon detail page.
- BEGAN READING:
- 2nd May 2007
FINISHED READING:- 25th July 2008