The Lightning Thief

I understand the nostalgia people feel for a series from their childhood. I was in high school when this series came out and read the first 3 books in college. Though I had fun at first, I got bored with the formula halfway through the 4th book and assumed it was an age issue. Recently, I've reread many of my favorite (and least favorite) books from childhood and have a really good grasp on what I would have liked and disliked as a kid. So I thought I'd give the series another go, almost 10 years after my first time reading it.

Unfortunately, I feel the same about the writing and plot progression as I did when I first read it. My younger self definitely would've been disappointed with it. Now, Riordan does a great job of incorporating elements missing from many middle grade stories, such as disability representation. However, I found this whole book really formulaic and lacking in tension. The kids would go to a new place, the place or host would turn out to be bad news, then they would escape. It took them far too long to be weary of new people. And considering how many dangerous situations they were in, I should have felt scared for them. I didn't though. It was very “after school special” with every chapter presenting a new problem and solving it within 10 pages. I also don't love Riordan's writing style and think it's a bit too robotic.

I really enjoyed the humor and characters and even laughed out loud a few times. I think the overall themes are great, but I feel there was a wasted opportunity to teach kids about dealing with real loss. Everything was just so very clean and easy. Kids books don't have to be that way. The action never stops, which is fantastic, but I would've loved fewer encounters with monsters and more development, more struggle, and higher stakes for those encounters.

I think it would also help if I found Greek mythology more interesting. I'm really neutral on it, so I didn't feel particularly invested in meeting all the gods and monsters. It seemed like the whole point was to pack in as many as possible to pander to readers who came in with existing knowledge of Greek mythology.