Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

I'm sure that I'm not the only person who brought the Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief purely because I liked the look of the film trailer. I always prefer to read the book first so I just had to pick it up. I didn't know much about the series before I started reading so I wasn't sure what to expect. I had a feeling that I might find it aimed at a younger audience that the usual YA books I read but as it turned out I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Percy is a 12 year old boy with dyslexia and ADHD. At the start of the book he is on the verge of being expelled from his 6th school in as many years for behaviour problems. He tries to be good but finds it hard to fit in & always seems to be caught in the middle of strange events.

When on a school trip Percy ends up vaporising his teacher & things start to get really strange. He is struggling to make sense of what is happening around him and is very surprised to discover that the father he never met is actually a Greek God. He ends up at Camp Half Blood - a summer school for demigods and starts to understand the strange things that have happened throughout his life.

He has the usual problems associated with trying to fit in at a new school but starts to feel like he is settling in. The last thing he wants to be is a hero, but when it becomes apparent that Zeus believes he was responsible for stealing his lightning bolt, Percy is left with no choice but to accept a quest. Armed with a magical pen and with the assistance of his friends Grover and Annabeth, it is up to Percy to find the missing lightning bolt and return it to Zeus before the God's start a war.

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief was a really great read and can be enjoyed by young and old alike. I quickly found myself immersed in the world Rick Riordan has created and the story moved along at a fast pace. I really enjoyed the way Greek mythology was woven into the story & I found it easy to relate to the main characters. I know there have been comparisons to Harry Potter by other reviewers but I didn't even think of that while I was reading the book. Yes there are similarities but you can make comparisons about many books & that doesn't take anything away from the enjoyment I got from reading this book. I'm looking forward to continuing reading this series.