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| The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1) | 
 enlarge | Author: R. Riordan
Publisher: Topeka Bindery
Category: Book
List Price: $17.60
Buy Used: $0.15
You Save: $17.45 (99%)
New (7) Used (21) Collectible (1) from $0.15
Avg. Customer Rating:  265 reviews
Sales Rank: 51856
Media: Library Binding
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 377
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5 x 1.3
ISBN: 0439865999
EAN: 9781417732470
ASIN: 1417732474
Publication Date: April 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Disillusioned (son of Discerning Reader) April 4, 2006
16 out of 43 found this review helpful
Okay, I really wanted to like this story but could only get half way through before it was so stupid I didn't want to finish it.Sure it moved along quickly, and Percy got into one scrape after another - but Aunt M for Medussa? It started out good, and I know a lot of kids liked it to the end so I'm real happy for them. I just didn't like Percy much, or Anabeth, and all that monster stuff was real lame. I like Artemis Fowl, Harry - and Ender's Game is one of my favorite books - all their characters were believable and they were smart. Percy just didn't cut it and I felt like I was in ancient history class.
 Fantastic Thrill Ride April 15, 2007
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
I held off buying THE LIGHTNING THIEF for a couple years. The market seems glutted with YA fantasy at the moment, and I read quite a bit of it with my 9-year-old. We've discovered several good series, but THE LIGHTNING THIEF seemed too long to hold his attention when it first came out.
This year we noticed it in the book fair at school, then saw that it was an Accelerated Reader book. So I picked it up and read a couple chapters to try it out. I was 50 pages into it when I realized I needed to be reading this to my son.
I did read it to him. We FLEW through the book (375 pages!) in 6 days because he kept pestering me to read it to him. We finished it up in a 5-hour marathon yesterday, hanging onto every page as Percy and his friends tried to save the world and put things to rights in their own lives.
THE LIGHTNING THIEF is a great book for adults and kids. I've already recommended it to a couple of adult friends who experienced the same kind of can't-put-it-down pull that I did.
Percy Jackson, the hero of the book, comes across as every kid you'd ever meet or ever would. He's no brainiac (he has dyslexia and ADHD) but he has friends who are. But he is courageous and clever, stubborn and loyal. He is the best he can be, and he's getting even better.
Riordan works in many of the Greek myths in the novel. There was a time when knowing Greek mythology was a pre-requisite for having a "classical" education. Many morals and philosophies are presented in the tales.
From the very beginning of the novel, we find out Percy is different when he ends up fighting a harpy in the museum while on a school trip. He's been kicked out of 6 schools in 6 years, lives with his mom and step-dad, Smelly Gabe, an evil guy who deliberately makes Percy's life hard.
Then, when he's on a well-deserved vacation with his mom, he finds out he's a Half-Blood, the son of one of the Greek gods. But his mom doesn't know who his dad was and that's just one of the mysteries Percy ends up solving.
The cool part of the book is peeling away all the mysteries of Percy's life and who really took Zeus's magic thunderbolt. Along the way he gains powers that set my son's head to spinning with hope and delight. Percy's a superhero without the costume, and there are plenty of villains in his world.
Riordan is a teacher who obviously loves kids as well as the subject matter. The Greek gods were a cantankerous lot, and Riordan delivers them well. Not only does he give his readers the stories, but he also brings the gods on stage and gives them personalities.
The series is supposed to run for 5 books. I think it will go on longer. I hope so. I've already ordered books 2 and 3, and my son and I are looking forward to them. The books take a while to read outloud to younger readers, but the effort is well rewarded. The story is rich and deep, and will keep your child's attention. In addition, you'd be surprised how much you can talk about even when you're not reading. And your child may just want to wander around the internet learning more interesting facts about Greek mythology.
THE LIGHTNING THIEF is well worth reading and is probably in most public and school libraries.
 Clearly a Harry Potter knockoff, but still fun anyway September 29, 2005
13 out of 15 found this review helpful
This book was obviously inspired by HP - instead of being about a boy With a Past who can do odd things, turns out to be a wizard and goes to wizarding school, it's about a boy With a Past who can do odd things, turns out to be a demigod and goes to demigod camp.
The parallels run right through the book - he has two friends; a bossy know-it-all girl and a whacky boy with low self-esteem, he has a bunch of eccentric but loveable teachers (including one who doesn't like him much), and he gets to be famous because of something he can't remember (the identity of his father). And there's a group of kids at the camp who are naturally mean (the children of Ares, God of War, as opposed to the Slytherins). Instead of platform 93/4, we have Floor 600 of the Empire State Building (a floor which supposedly doesn't exist). The world of the gods is right next to the world of the mortals, but the mortals don't notice. And so on and so forth.
BUT - and this is a significant but - it's still fun to read anyway. There are plenty of original elements to make up for the borrowed stuff, and the book has a light, fun tone which makes it a good-natured and enjoyable read. At one point there is an obviously deliberate nod to JKRowling - the hero comes across someone reading a book 'with a wizard on the cover', which appears to be thoroughly engrossing. So go ahead and read this book. It's fun, some of the jokes are laugh-out-loud funny, and the pacing is nicely brisk.
This book is an example of the fact that ideas which aren't 100% original can still be fun. When I reviewed Eragon, I didn't complain much about the stolen elements (ie the entire book). Instead, I focused on the fact that it wasn't fun to read. Percy Jackson, by contrast, isn't strikingly original but is still compulsively enjoyable reading. So I'm praising it. Younger people and the non-analytically-minded will especially enjoy it. Dive right in!
 "Harry Potter" meets "Holes" November 12, 2006
10 out of 14 found this review helpful
What a disappointment! After seeing the reviews, I had high hopes for this book. Alas, I was not prepared for the extraordinary similarity to Harry Potter. Percy Jackson, as you will have read in the other reviews, is the young teenage son of a Greek god and a mortal woman. He's a boy with extraordinary powers, of which he's intially unaware, living among muggl..., excuse me, ordinary people. He goes to halfbreed camp (Hogwarts), where, with other demigods (wizards and witches), he studies the things a demigod has to know. (No Quidditch, I was relieved to find, although "capture the flag" seems to more or less play that role.) Then he goes on a quest with a satyr (Ron) and a teenage girl (Hermione). There's a even a Voldemort-like evil eminence gris behind all the trouble, who we are assured will become more important in sequels.
So, it's pretty similar to Harry Potter, but there are differences. I'm not sure I'd agree that it's "hipper", as so many other reviewers say. It's more that it's gritty and dark. Percy was born out of wedlock, but now has a beer-guzzling, wife-beating redneck stepfather. He's a failing student with psychological problems. This may sound a bit like Harry and the Dursleys, but whereas the Dursleys are so exaggerated as to be comical, Percy's domestic troubles are seriously depressing. In fact, I couldn't help feeling that the mood was borrowed from "Holes" in the same way that the plot was borrowed from "Harry Potter". Unfortunately, Riordan doesn't have either Rowling or Sachar's sense of humor. There are jokes in Percy Jackson, but they are forced, without delight, and they are decorations to the story, not a real part of it.
Clever Use of Greek Mythology July 31, 2007
10 out of 15 found this review helpful
Now that Harry Potter is finished, people will be wading through the glut of young adult fantasy fiction to find the next pot of gold. The first book in Rick Riorden's Percy and the Olympians series won't replace the boy wizard, but is a clever addition to an ever expanding genre. Young Percy Jackson finds out he is the child of a mortal and an Olympic God after nearly losing his life in one breathtaking attempt after another. The fun part here is how the author represents the monsters and myths that so many people are familiar with from the ancient Greek myths. The shortcomings of the book are a general surface tone to the book that never delves deep into Percy's emotions,especially at the loss of someone close to him, and a constant foreshadowing of impending doom that for older readers spoils any surprises that might await our hero. Still for the younger reader a fun adventure series begins that has a clever hook to draw you in.
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