Review: Percy Jackson and the Olympians Book 1. The Lightning Thief

So I just finished the first book of this middle grade novel. It took me a total of 4 days to read it. I was expecting a massive accomplishment since I've heard it compared to "Harry Potter" and has a movie coming out. (Movie's off of books usually mean they have an audience.)

This book wasn't quite up to the hype that I've been hearing about it. Although, I enjoyed it for the Greek mythology brought up to date, which I thought was very clever, I never got the sense of wonder that other books in this genre tend to inspire. I think the primary reason for this was the writing was a little bit too telling at times when I wanted to get a better sense of what was going on. It could attributed to the younger audience, but once again "Harry Potter" didn't have this same sort of feel to it.

The characters were nice, a little predictable, but that wasn't a bad thing as they did their roles well. The story moved along at a quick pace and kept me entertained, mainly through the god references, and mythology, but the plot was pretty simple and the big twists I saw a while ahead of time. I think it's my age that probably did that as I've grown accustom to more adult novels so these twists weren't so surprising.

If I think about it from a younger mindset, I think that it would have worked a lot better.

However, there were two things that really bothered me about the book, one was it seemed like they were going to get done with their quest like a week ahead of the deadline and they just happen to come across a casino that fast forward's time? It seemed a bit convenient, however it was cleverly done, but seemed like they just added it because things were getting done faster than the writer hoped.

Another thing that bothered me and this might not have been the writer's doing, but I've always read about how the first book should stand on its own and tie up all loose ends. This book leaves a major plot point wide open at the end. This could have been done by the publishing house after they decided to continue it in a series so they left it open. I think this bothered me because of the fact that if this book wasn't a series, I would have been left with a sort of what the heck was that ending?

Overall the book is good minus those couple points above and maybe I was just not its target audience. I would give the book a good 3.5 out of 5.

Have you read it, what did you guys think of it as fellow writers?