The Sea of Monsters ReviewAuthor: Rick Riordan
Year: 2006
(Percy Jackson and the Olympians Book 2)
Book two in the Percy Jackson series was the next push for the series, and the moment I finished this book was the moment I got hooked on the series. The plot isn’t as complex as the Lightning Thief. Percy whose been getting by in his new school with his new friend Tyson, is suddenly thrown back into Camp Half-Blood, but now it seems the Camp’s boarders keeping out the monsters is breaking, and he has to solve it, while also rescuing his best friend Grover. And the place where both his friend and the Golden Fleece (the item needed to fix the boarders) is located in the Sea of Monsters, or in mortal words, the Bermuda Triangle. Let’s start with the characters. First Percy is developing a little. He’s thirteen now, he has something that is making him feel self confident involving Poseidon, and as usual, nothing is going his way. Annabeth is mostly just there, but she has a really strong scene, aside from that she’s mostly just there. As for Grover, being involved in the plot and being involved is helpful. As for Clarisse, she is pushed to main character level, and we see multiple sides of her character, and she really is part of the cast. As for Tyson, he’s a central character, and another great addition to the cast. Meanwhile characters like Chiron and Luke are still having their own plots going on, although not a big part of the story. And there are little things like the new activity’s director, and the Hippocampi, which are nice additions as well. As for the plot, it’s a nice edition to the series, although maybe not as big as the saving the world story from the last one, but then again dozens of lives are in their hands, including their own, so it feels pretty big. This book is smaller than the Lightning Thief, so it is like the book’s little brother. Which is a weird coincidence since little brother kind of is a theme. But it’s similar to the lost one in formula, but completely different on what happens. Whereas the last one was chapter events ultimately leading to the Underworld, this one is more Camp, you’re there, couple pitstops, climax, little extra, resolution. And yeah, there are only like two chapters like the Lightning Thief where there is a little event in between. And yeah, there is more action, and arguably two climaxes, both of which are nice. And the resolution is in a completely different form, which happens with each book. And ultimately it introduced the main villain of the series, and the main plot, where at the age of sixteen a demigod (who we obviously assume is Percy) who is the son of Zeus, Hades, or Poseidon will make a decision of killing the gods, or saving them. As for the world, Camp Half-Blood is as good as always, but unlike the last book with the real world places making the balance between the monster world and real world really feel like half, a good portion of this book takes place within the Sea of Monsters, raising the fiction world a little with more lore and things like Pegasi, or Hippocampi, or Cyclopes or whatever. And yeah, big fun world with big fun creatures, big fun fights, and all big fun crap. We also get another god introduced, this one being Hermes. And yeah, he was a pretty good character I guess. And I thought I would have to mention that ending. I love this book’s ending to death, and it’s another reason why I would suggest giving these books to naïve children who can’t guess the ending like me. And yeah, each time I’ve read it, I’ve gotten goosebumps. I once read just the ending for the sake of it, and I got goosebumps there too! And I will compare this to the Lighting Thief a couple more times. One, this book feels a lot more like a shot of adrenaline, and goes through even faster than the Lightning Thief, which was already fast. But that was more centered, and it’s a matter of preference. I remember reading this for the first time, and yeah, I thought it was better than the Lightning Thief, but then I had my extra past with the book, and this although I love, is my least favorite in the series. It’s the shortest, and that shows. And yeah, it’s a lot like a certain younger brother in this book, one of the main characters. It’s younger, the little brother, funny and quirky, and action-y. But I guess he’s not short, so that’s a good point. So yeah, I kind of look at the Sea of Monsters like the little brother of the awesome Lighting Thief. This one paved the way for a lot of epic to come around, so in that sense it did as much if not more work than the Lighting Thief. So yeah, not really anything really wrong with the book aside from the occasional LUKE IS A FUCKING ASSHOLE moment that got under my skin. The characters were great, the story was great, and yeah, everything was great great great great—have I said great enough? And it was another addition to the series I love to death, and a good follow up. Let’s see if the Titan’s Curse will be the same.
The Sea of Monsters gets a 4/5
Spoilers: Yeah, I’ll get my one little quirk of this book out of the way. Luke is fucking dick. Yeah, like a total dick. He doesn’t even care if Annabeth and Grover die, and becomes the typical big bad guy you’d see in a cartoon, with zero reason to come full circle. But his fight scene was good I guess, and made a well enough second climax following the fight with Polyph… polyfetu… oh however the hell you spell it. I will also say it was a smart move having Grover gone, as it somehow helped his character having a move in the plot, and not overload with everyone doing stuff at once. And Tyson was a good character, and was the symbolism of the dorky brother who people are wondering if he’s retarded or something. And yeah, by beating up some bad guys, giving Percy a nice shield, and just being a bad ass, who wouldn’t want that guy for a brother? You respect that possibly retarded little brother of your friend now. And yeah, Annabeth’s scene with the Sirens, and the Ares scene with Clarisse, they both added a lot of depth for both characters, and this book really did just add this overall good feel with the cast as a whole. Not to mention that awesome ending introducing Thalia, which really was nothing short of amazing. Not to mention I love Thalia’s character, and she’d be in my top five if picking five characters from this series wouldn’t involve me pulling my hair out.
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