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dhampyresaWhat did you finish reading
The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan: I understand that the target audience for these books is Percy's age, so about 12 for this one, but can we please stop referring to Medusa as Poseidon's girlfriend? He raped her. (I like the interpretation that Athena made Medusa into a Gorgon so that would never happen to her again, but that's clearly not what's going on here.) The worst thing about this is that if Medusa was referred to as having a grudge against Poseidon (no details, because, again, target audience age of 12), it would change absolutely nothing to the Medusa incident.
I am also pretty annoyed that the book fell back on the tired "hades is evil" cliché. I'm not saying Hades is a good person (just ask Persephone), but he doesn't "feed on doubt and hopelessness". Also, can someone explain this quote to me:
With that being said, this book has a lot of stuff I like: clever stuff with mythology (the Lous Eaters as a Hotel California-esque casino)! Sally Jackson (fights Minotaurs! "If my life is to mean anything, I have to live it myself.")! The chapter titles (or, as I like to call them, 'how does Percy fuck up this time?' "I Ruin A Perfectly Good Bus", "I Plunge To My Death", "I Become A Known Fugitive")! The humour ("You eat cheese enchiladas and aluminum cans?"/"Those are vegetables.")!
Seriously. The humour. This book make me crack up several times. Like so:
THE FRIENDSHIP! There's so much good friendship stuff (and those were my favourite parts), so I won't quote all of them because we'll be here all day, so have a short, mostly non-spoilery one from the end of the book:
Nice reveal with the Big Bad too. Made sense in context of both the books and mythology and will make for an interesting arc plot, I think. (So I guess we averted the "Hades is evil" trope, yay?)
The Sea of Monsters, by Rick Riordan: Percy and Grover are canonically soul-bonded, you guys, hahaha what.
Percy continues to be terrible at Greek myhology and while understand why (audience viewpoint, makes it easier to explain context/concepts), I kind of feel that it's not the best survival strategy, because for every
I loved that when Circe asked Annabeth to quote famous hablood female heroes, Annabeth apparently decided to do that IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER (Amelia Earhart, Atalanta...). Truly a girl after my own heart. And then they highjacked the Queen Anne's Revenge. Yeah. They stole Blackbeard's ship, it was awesome.
More us-against-the-world stuff ("Probably what this meant was that we'd all die insead of just me, but I was grateful for the help.")! More you're-evil-and-I-still-care ("Sorry, old friend." Luke smiled.)! More clever mythology stuff (Hydras as franchise powersources)!
New stuff I liked: the Grey Sisters ("Eye!" Wasp yelled. "Gimme!"), Hermes and Martha&George (She's touching me, George complained as he and Martha slithered around the pole. / "She's always touching you," Hermes said. "You're intertwined. And if you don't stop that, you'll get knotted again!"), the new and tentative friendship with Clarisse , Tyson being endlessly adorable (and not-dead) and this quote, presented without context:
ALSO! Can we talk about how fucking brilliant Kronos' plan was? Because it was a really good plan. Poisoning Thalias's tree leads to one of three outcomes: Nobody gets the Fleece, the camp protection fails, open season on demi-gods; Luke gets the Fleece and Kronos' healing speeds up; Thalia gets un-treed by the Fleece, giving Kro,os one more demi-god to corrupt to his side/end the world with.
The Titan's Curse, by Rick Riordan: can people please start telling Percy stuff? And/or can Percy get over himself and just ask when people make cryptic pronouncements?
I liked Thalia and Bianca, but isn't it oh so fucking convinient that both the girls that the prophecy could apply to get taken out of the picture permanently? (And don't get me started on Artemis' "go astray=become smitten with boys" philosophy, because what about lesbians for one and).
Also, remember my point above about Poseidon raping Medusa and if you're not going to present it as rape, can you at least not present it as consensual? Apollo's "I hate it when pretty girls turn to trees" comment set my teeth on edge, because he's talking about Daphne, the girl he tried to rape, which NO.
I have no idea why the manticore has a French accent, or how I'm supposed to feel about that.
More evil-but-still-cares ("Luke, you may kill the girl now." / Luke hesitated."She-she may yet be useful, sir. further bait.", because that is totally why you suggested it, Luke. Totally.)! Or
ARIADNE GOT A HAPPY ENDING! I loved the brother-sister relationships in this one (Bianca+Nico, risking her life to complete his Mythomagic figurine set, oh Bianca, and Apollo+Artemis, "Nobody messes with my baby sister. Nobody." "don't call me that, we're twins")!
I was kind of confused when Zoë used Ursa major to determine where north was, because two thousand years ago, that wasn't the star you'd be looking for if you wanted to go north (Axial precession, learn it!), but I guess she's upgraded her knowledge since then.
Percy is still a huge dork: "Greetings from Frisco.Haven't Died Yet. Wish You Were Here.", " "Hello," I amended. "We're about to die!" ", as is Nico ("A manticore?" Nico gasped. "He's got three thousand attack power and plus five to saving throws!", which I am sure he does, but when he's trying to turn you into demi-god barbecue is maybe not the best time to say so).
Dr Chase won his way into my heart when he started history-fanboying all over Zoë when she revealed having been at the Third Battle of Ypres
It was completely unintentional, but
"To save a friend, [Percy] would sacrifice the world.": need I say more?
What are you reading now
The Battle of the Labyrinth, by Rick Riordan: I called it that Rachel Elizabeth Dare would show up again!
What are you reading next
The rest of the series.
The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan: I understand that the target audience for these books is Percy's age, so about 12 for this one, but can we please stop referring to Medusa as Poseidon's girlfriend? He raped her. (I like the interpretation that Athena made Medusa into a Gorgon so that would never happen to her again, but that's clearly not what's going on here.) The worst thing about this is that if Medusa was referred to as having a grudge against Poseidon (no details, because, again, target audience age of 12), it would change absolutely nothing to the Medusa incident.
I am also pretty annoyed that the book fell back on the tired "hades is evil" cliché. I'm not saying Hades is a good person (just ask Persephone), but he doesn't "feed on doubt and hopelessness". Also, can someone explain this quote to me:
The Lord of the Dead resembled pictures I'd seen of Adolph Hitler, or Napoleon, or the terrorist leaders who direct suicide bombers.Because one of these things (ie Napoleon) is not like the others.
With that being said, this book has a lot of stuff I like: clever stuff with mythology (the Lous Eaters as a Hotel California-esque casino)! Sally Jackson (fights Minotaurs! "If my life is to mean anything, I have to live it myself.")! The chapter titles (or, as I like to call them, 'how does Percy fuck up this time?' "I Ruin A Perfectly Good Bus", "I Plunge To My Death", "I Become A Known Fugitive")! The humour ("You eat cheese enchiladas and aluminum cans?"/"Those are vegetables.")!
Seriously. The humour. This book make me crack up several times. Like so:
"Percy," Annabeth said. "I said hello to the poodle. You say hello to the poodle."
The poodle growled.
I said hello to the poodle.
THE FRIENDSHIP! There's so much good friendship stuff (and those were my favourite parts), so I won't quote all of them because we'll be here all day, so have a short, mostly non-spoilery one from the end of the book:
"You idiot," Annabeth said, which is how I knew she was overjoyed to see me conscious.You know what kind of relationship I love as much as platonic us-against-the-world type of stuff? We-used-to-be-freinds-and-now-you're-evil, so hi there Luke! How you doin'?
Nice reveal with the Big Bad too. Made sense in context of both the books and mythology and will make for an interesting arc plot, I think. (So I guess we averted the "Hades is evil" trope, yay?)
The Sea of Monsters, by Rick Riordan: Percy and Grover are canonically soul-bonded, you guys, hahaha what.
Percy continues to be terrible at Greek myhology and while understand why (audience viewpoint, makes it easier to explain context/concepts), I kind of feel that it's not the best survival strategy, because for every
"They have one eye."(Or: Percy pulls a jason on the Grey Sisters), there's an accepting-strange-beverages-from-Circe-omg-Percy-why-would-you-do-that.
"One eye?"
"Yeah."
"Each?"
"No. One total."
I loved that when Circe asked Annabeth to quote famous hablood female heroes, Annabeth apparently decided to do that IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER (Amelia Earhart, Atalanta...). Truly a girl after my own heart. And then they highjacked the Queen Anne's Revenge. Yeah. They stole Blackbeard's ship, it was awesome.
More us-against-the-world stuff ("Probably what this meant was that we'd all die insead of just me, but I was grateful for the help.")! More you're-evil-and-I-still-care ("Sorry, old friend." Luke smiled.)! More clever mythology stuff (Hydras as franchise powersources)!
New stuff I liked: the Grey Sisters ("Eye!" Wasp yelled. "Gimme!"), Hermes and Martha&George (She's touching me, George complained as he and Martha slithered around the pole. / "She's always touching you," Hermes said. "You're intertwined. And if you don't stop that, you'll get knotted again!"), the new and tentative friendship with Clarisse , Tyson being endlessly adorable (and not-dead) and this quote, presented without context:
bronze-plated bootiesand this one
"Europa fell off and died along the way, but that's not important."I could have done without what seems to be the beginning of an Annabeth/Percy romance.
"It was probably important to her."
ALSO! Can we talk about how fucking brilliant Kronos' plan was? Because it was a really good plan. Poisoning Thalias's tree leads to one of three outcomes: Nobody gets the Fleece, the camp protection fails, open season on demi-gods; Luke gets the Fleece and Kronos' healing speeds up; Thalia gets un-treed by the Fleece, giving Kro,os one more demi-god to corrupt to his side/end the world with.
The Titan's Curse, by Rick Riordan: can people please start telling Percy stuff? And/or can Percy get over himself and just ask when people make cryptic pronouncements?
I liked Thalia and Bianca, but isn't it oh so fucking convinient that both the girls that the prophecy could apply to get taken out of the picture permanently? (And don't get me started on Artemis' "go astray=become smitten with boys" philosophy, because what about lesbians for one and).
Also, remember my point above about Poseidon raping Medusa and if you're not going to present it as rape, can you at least not present it as consensual? Apollo's "I hate it when pretty girls turn to trees" comment set my teeth on edge, because he's talking about Daphne, the girl he tried to rape, which NO.
I have no idea why the manticore has a French accent, or how I'm supposed to feel about that.
More evil-but-still-cares ("Luke, you may kill the girl now." / Luke hesitated."She-she may yet be useful, sir. further bait.", because that is totally why you suggested it, Luke. Totally.)! Or
"Yield!" Thalia yelled. "You never could beat me, Luke."I may be shipping Thalia/Luke now, ngl (also, Grover/Luke, Annabeth/Luke and Percy/Luke. I just really like this dynamic, okay?). On a completely unrelated note, I hope someone somewhere's written the AU where Thalia accepted Kronos' offer, or the one where she doesn't join the Hunters.
He bared his teeth. "We'll see my old friend."
ARIADNE GOT A HAPPY ENDING! I loved the brother-sister relationships in this one (Bianca+Nico, risking her life to complete his Mythomagic figurine set, oh Bianca, and Apollo+Artemis, "Nobody messes with my baby sister. Nobody." "don't call me that, we're twins")!
I was kind of confused when Zoë used Ursa major to determine where north was, because two thousand years ago, that wasn't the star you'd be looking for if you wanted to go north (Axial precession, learn it!), but I guess she's upgraded her knowledge since then.
Percy is still a huge dork: "Greetings from Frisco.Haven't Died Yet. Wish You Were Here.", " "Hello," I amended. "We're about to die!" ", as is Nico ("A manticore?" Nico gasped. "He's got three thousand attack power and plus five to saving throws!", which I am sure he does, but when he's trying to turn you into demi-god barbecue is maybe not the best time to say so).
Dr Chase won his way into my heart when he started history-fanboying all over Zoë when she revealed having been at the Third Battle of Ypres
"You saw the Sopwith Camels?" Dr. Chase said. "How many were there? What formation did they fly?"AND THEN HE BROUGHT A BIPLANE TO A GOD FIGHT.
It was completely unintentional, but
"Perhaps not all men," Zoë murmured.was kind of creepy, especially since it's one of the last things she says. I also wish she hadn't died, I liked her. (I loved that Artemis made her into a constellation, though.)
"To save a friend, [Percy] would sacrifice the world.": need I say more?
What are you reading now
The Battle of the Labyrinth, by Rick Riordan: I called it that Rachel Elizabeth Dare would show up again!
What are you reading next
The rest of the series.