[Reading]Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Sea of Monsters

HaHa, I think I’m not as old as I thought, since I can still get indulged in a book for children in elementary schools. Or probably I should say the author Rick Riordan wrote so good a story that I as an “old man” can also get fascinated.

Back to this book — The Sea of Monsters, I think it’s interesting than its predecessor — The Lightning Thief. Because I think the overall storytelling of the adventure is much more coherent. Compared to the last time, where I spent almost a week to read the first volume, it only took me two days for reading this time, which on the other side should also proved that this volume is the better one. Or maybe I was just reading faster than before? Most surprisingly, there is a big plot twist at the ending, which makes me can wait to start the next volume. Although there are some irrational plots, just as the first volume. For example, I can’t understand why the campers would change their attitude to us(Percy and his friends), since all of them just thought it was Clarisse who brought the Fleece back to the camp. Is it because I’m just too old to catch up with what young people are thinking?

Then, I would like to talk about the plot twist. The author foreshadowed so much for this plot twist that I should have noticed it earlier. But until the author is writing “It was not Annabeth who was lying on the ground”, I just realized the big surprise. The author provided an obvious hint: Percy healed the badly injured Annabeth with the help of the Fleece on the island of Polyphemus, when I should have thought about the possibility that Thalia would be revived if the Fleece can be finally brought back to the camp. I couldn’t help exclaiming how calculating Kronos was when I was reading. He changed the prophecy by poisoning the pine tree and lured Percy and his friends to get back the Fleece to resurrect Thalia when all the reading are probably thinking our protagonist Percy should be “the person in the prophecy”, a person who only lived in people’s memory got revived and became the “person”.

Hereby, I just want to where the plot will go. I think Percy should also be “the person in the prophecy”. After all, it cannot be more reasonable that the protagonist is the “person”. On the other hand, Thalia will hesitate between good(Olympians) and evil(Kronos). And she might even get bewitched by the evil for a time. But at the end she would come to realize her fault and sacrifice herself to help Percy.

At last, I want to continue the talk about the combination of novels and mythologies. Actually, I know little about the mythical characters in this volume except Siren. As for Charybdis, Scylla, Circe, Polyphemus etc, I even haven’t heard about them. But it’s a quite interesting experience learning their stories, which is one of the reasons which encourage me to continue reading this series.