• Author: Rick Riordan
• Series: Percy Jackson and the Olympians #1-5
• Genre: Fantasy
• No. of pages: 1,710
• Dates read: 29.08.2019 – 27.05.2021
• Star Rating: 5 stars

Plot for Book 1: Percy Jackson is a good kid, but he can’t seem to focus on his schoolwork or control his temper. And lately, being away at boarding school is only getting worse – Percy could have sworn his pre-algebra teacher turned into a monster and tried to kill him. When Percy’s mom finds out, she knows it’s time that he knew the truth about where he came from, and that he go to the one place he’ll be safe. She sends Percy to Camp Half Blood, a summer camp for demigods (on Long Island), where he learns that the father he never knew is Poseidon, God of the Sea. Soon a mystery unfolds and together with his friends—one a satyr and the other the demigod daughter of Athena – Percy sets out on a quest across the United States to reach the gates of the Underworld (located in a recording studio in Hollywood) and prevent a catastrophic war between the gods. 

So, back in 2019 I highlighted, to myself, some series that I wanted to re-read or finally get round to completing. I originally started with re-reading the Harry Potter series but decided to stop after the author’s transphobia came out. I was super disappointed in this revelation as Harry Potter was my childhood and meant a lot to me so I turned to my other childhood favourite Percy Jackson but I was wary. What if I don’t like it anymore? What if it’s too young for me now? It made me nervous starting the re-read but as you can see by the rating I fell in love with it all over again. I also have perfect timing as now they are casting Percy Jackson for the Disney+ tv show! So I am super up-to-date with the story.

Spoilers for the whole series below.

One of the standout elements to me in this whole series was Percy’s narrative voice. I don’t love 1st person POV I feel like I have seen it done badly numerous times. I personally prefer a 3rd person narrative but every time I picked up a Percy Jackson book I knew I was going to enjoy the writing. Riordan just packs so much personality into the writing where you truly feel like you know Percy as a friend, you feel like you are right beside him as he fights monsters and saves his friends. There is a never a dull moment in Percy’s POV as much as you can laugh alongside him, as he is hilarious, you can all cry alongside him as Riordan is able to pull off some beautiful and touching moments in this series, especially in the final book. I also liked how you could sense the maturity grow in Percy with each book as he starts the series at like 12 and ends it at age 16.

I loved the plot of each book, my personal fave being book 4 The Battle of the Labyrinth, but the highlight of the series was watching the overarching plot of Kronos’ near rise. One of my all time favourite elements of storytelling is the overing arcing plot and how it weaves it’s way through each individual story and you watch it get bigger and bigger and the puzzle pieces start falling more and more into place and I think this was done super well in this series. From the minute Luke reveals himself to be the traitor until he kills Kronos at the end, the whole arc was just paced and structured amazingly. I loved how it started and ended with Luke.

Another standout element was the characters especially the main trio. Percy was an incredible character and it was great to see him grow as a person and the Percy at the end of series is just an all around amazing character. I loved Annabeth more this re-read. I always liked her but I was always more focused on Hermione at that time in my life. I saw myself in Hermione and didn’t really consider any other characters but this time round I really focused on Annabeth and really came to love her as a character and enjoyed watching her backstory unfold and her abilities get better and better. Grover I also enjoyed a lot more during this re-read. I always thought he was lovely but I had forgotten all of the extra elements to his story like his moment of Panic in Book 4 and his contribution to the fight in Book 5. I really came to appreciate his character and his part in the series more so this time round.

Nico I enjoyed in the series but I did expect more. The fandom love Nico so much that I forgot how much he was actually in the series. While I enjoyed his character I wasn’t as connected to him as much as I thought I was going to be. I actually felt more connection to Thalia who I remember not liking that much when she was introduced back when I first read it as I didn’t want her to overshadow Percy. This time round I loved her so much! I also didn’t realise how much I would be drawn to Luke’s story, I found it to be an incredibly well done arc where it didn’t ignore that actions that he committed but you could understand why he would end up on that path. I never felt like Riordan was telling us to forgive him wholeheartedly but to understand where he was failed that ended up with him being the perfect candidate for Kronos’ plan.

Overall, this was an amazing series with an incredible plot, beautiful characters and great messages about family, feeling like belong and doing the right thing. I am 20 years old and I love this middle grade series and I feel like everyone needs to read it at least once, support the tv show when it comes out and don’t watch the movies!