The Lightning Thief: Percy Jackson, Book 1

Really enjoyed this entire series of novels. The Greek mythology backdrop is hugely informative about the classics.

The idea for this book was clever and I wanted to like it. I quickly got bored of the repetitive series of monsters that Percy just happens to keep running into though. I found myself tuning out.

I should say that I'm not the target audience. I'm in my 30s and looking for books with characters that my kids will love and admire. This isn't one of those - it's an action book with lots of fights with monsters. Kids will like it well enough for that, but it's a bit empty at heart.

One thing to be aware of is that many of the main characters in the book are the offspring of one night stands of greek gods who 'just can't help themselves' with pretty humans. It's not a major theme in the book, but it comes up several times because the kids are occasionally angsty about their parents. I felt it was a bit premature for a pre-teen book.

Oh dear lord this is bad - I've genuinely never encountered a children's writer how has such an incredibly poor grasp of how children talk, act or behave. It's an insult to the term 'one dimensional' to even describe them as that. Major incidents seem to happen which they react to, then one line later seem to forget about and move back on to trying to tell weak jokes/have terribly written conversations. So bad I'm asking for a refund. I can't believe this was a bestseller.

After watching the film one night i thought to myself "wouldn't this be a good idea for a book". so i was excited to see that it was in fact based... loosely on a book! Sadly, this audio book didn't quite live up to my expectations. The story itself is 'ok'. I had hoped for a bit more 'world' building, but that never materialised and kept to a very basic level. admittedly this might be ideal for a younger reader/listener, but for me it was a real disappointment. The final nail on in the coffin however was the narrator.

The books are great although the reader takes a little getting use to, rather too american

A brilliant story which will appeal to teenagers, young Percy Jackson is struggling at school with his dyslexic and ADHD if thats not enough his math teacher turns into a monster and trys to kill him!
This book is much better than the film. After listening to this I was pretty sure my dyslexic was because I was also a demi god!
A wonderful story which will inspire young minds!

Great story for everyone to listen to on long journeys, passes the acid test, that everyone ones to listen to the end of the story, even after escaping the car.

I thought if I listen to it every night I would fall sleep, but it got me listening through it all night. Didn't really took me long to finish. I think this book is very exciting and enjoyeable to listen to.

I was hoping for something as interesting as the Harry Potter series, you know interesting characters and plots, what I found was a book that was so utterly predictable I only managed to get 3/4 a way through before giving up. Disappointing.

Enjoyed it but not so much that I would explore the rest of the Percy Jackson series.