Have a wonderful summer and don't forget to read ALL the books!
See? That's me going into Narnia! Sort of.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Off to Narnia
I'm going to be traveling to Narnia this summer and will not have Internet access (us Narnians don't need the international network). That means that I will not be posting anything for a while. I'm not leaving this blog forever, have no fears this is a very good way to waste time very nice way for me to practice writing and reviewing books, so I do not intend to leave anytime soon.
Have a wonderful summer and don't forget to read ALL the books!
See? That's me going into Narnia! Sort of.
Have a wonderful summer and don't forget to read ALL the books!
See? That's me going into Narnia! Sort of.
Heroes, gods and satyrs, oh my!
Remember that time when I said I had specific books to read? Yeah, well, I read one and a half of them.
I kind of knew that I wouldn't read Sherlock Holmes (I'll read that in the plane) but I finished Wildwood and most of the Hobbit. But then, something happened.
My brother.
Okay, that's not entirely true. But he was reading Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan and I hadn't brought my own book, so I started reading it while he was busy. When we got back to the cabin we where staying at, I started reading The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan (which is the first book in the series) and read most of it before realizing that it was midnight and I was tired.
So, instead of talking about the Hobbit or reviewing Wildwood, which I really should be doing, I'm going to do a Series Series for July. And instead of going in chronological order, I will be discussing Heroes of Olympus instead of Percy Jackson. Let me explain.
The Heroes of Olympus by Rick Riordan
Once upon a time, Rick Riordan wrote a series called Percy Jackson and the Olympians. It was about a boy named Percy who was not as normal as he thought he was: he was the son of Poseidon, Greek god of the sea. He was brought to Camp Half-Blood, the only safe haven for demigods. There he learned how to fight monsters, how to deal with the gods and that satyrs like to eat enchiladas. He goes on various quests with his friends Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, and Grover, a satyr. At the end of the series, they must save Mt. Olympus from the onslaught of the Titans who have risen once more from Tartarus. Mt. Olympus is located at the very top of the Empire State Building in New York.
I really liked the Percy Jackson series, it's my "I don't know what to read, so here we go again" series. It appeals to boys as much as it does to girls, which is always great.
All of this adds up to why I was really sceptic about Riordan's new series. At first, I didn't really like it: I didn't know these new characters and I didn't want to read about them. Eventually though, I started liking them. There personalities are different from Percy, Annabeth and Grover's, and the writing is just as easy to read. That's the thing I like about these books: they sound like it really could be sixteen-year-olds talking. You know how sometimes an author will try and write a teenager's dialogue and all of us under 18 are just groaning with the cheesiness and falseness? Well, Riordan has overcome that barrier very nicely, in my opinion.
I liked The Lost Hero a lot more than I liked Son of Neptune, the second book in the series. I think it's just because I didn't like the characters in that one aside from Percy (and even he got on my nerves). It felt like Riordan had used up all of his character ideas and was using slightly overused ones in this book.
Then, Mark of Athena came out and I was scared. Seven main characters. That's very hard to juggle. Luckily, only four point of view are used to tell the story and they're the characters that I like. The story is a good one, with interesting creatures from Greek and Roman mythology.
My one major issue with the way these books are written is that most beginning and end of chapters are predictable: at the beginning, something "surprising" is happening, usually an attack, and at the end, there is a "cliffhanger". I put that in quotes because you can't just have a cliffhanger at the end of every single chapter. It becomes boring and predictable. That said, I think that that's what keeps the less interested readers, um... interested (good word choice right there, uh-huh.) Also, whenever a character gets a premonition, say, a dream for example, that dream is always used as an intense detail. "It was all happy but should he tell them about his dream?" "She couldn't stop thinking about her dream." "He felt a sinking feeling: that place looked just like the one in his DREEEAM."
Okay, so I don't like the constant mention of bad things to come. Sometimes they fit and move the plot along, sometimes they just interrupt a moment that didn't need interrupting.
So what do you guys think about Percy Jackson and his demigod friends? I love the books; they're not advanced literature or anything (far from it), but they make me laugh and I like the idea of Greek mythology tangling with the modern world.
Also, last word of advice: if you are considering reading these books after watching the terrible movie that they made out of it, you're in for a treat. They're a million times better.
I kind of knew that I wouldn't read Sherlock Holmes (I'll read that in the plane) but I finished Wildwood and most of the Hobbit. But then, something happened.
My brother.
Okay, that's not entirely true. But he was reading Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan and I hadn't brought my own book, so I started reading it while he was busy. When we got back to the cabin we where staying at, I started reading The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan (which is the first book in the series) and read most of it before realizing that it was midnight and I was tired.
So, instead of talking about the Hobbit or reviewing Wildwood, which I really should be doing, I'm going to do a Series Series for July. And instead of going in chronological order, I will be discussing Heroes of Olympus instead of Percy Jackson. Let me explain.
The Heroes of Olympus by Rick Riordan
Once upon a time, Rick Riordan wrote a series called Percy Jackson and the Olympians. It was about a boy named Percy who was not as normal as he thought he was: he was the son of Poseidon, Greek god of the sea. He was brought to Camp Half-Blood, the only safe haven for demigods. There he learned how to fight monsters, how to deal with the gods and that satyrs like to eat enchiladas. He goes on various quests with his friends Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, and Grover, a satyr. At the end of the series, they must save Mt. Olympus from the onslaught of the Titans who have risen once more from Tartarus. Mt. Olympus is located at the very top of the Empire State Building in New York.
I really liked the Percy Jackson series, it's my "I don't know what to read, so here we go again" series. It appeals to boys as much as it does to girls, which is always great.
All of this adds up to why I was really sceptic about Riordan's new series. At first, I didn't really like it: I didn't know these new characters and I didn't want to read about them. Eventually though, I started liking them. There personalities are different from Percy, Annabeth and Grover's, and the writing is just as easy to read. That's the thing I like about these books: they sound like it really could be sixteen-year-olds talking. You know how sometimes an author will try and write a teenager's dialogue and all of us under 18 are just groaning with the cheesiness and falseness? Well, Riordan has overcome that barrier very nicely, in my opinion.
I liked The Lost Hero a lot more than I liked Son of Neptune, the second book in the series. I think it's just because I didn't like the characters in that one aside from Percy (and even he got on my nerves). It felt like Riordan had used up all of his character ideas and was using slightly overused ones in this book.
Then, Mark of Athena came out and I was scared. Seven main characters. That's very hard to juggle. Luckily, only four point of view are used to tell the story and they're the characters that I like. The story is a good one, with interesting creatures from Greek and Roman mythology.
My one major issue with the way these books are written is that most beginning and end of chapters are predictable: at the beginning, something "surprising" is happening, usually an attack, and at the end, there is a "cliffhanger". I put that in quotes because you can't just have a cliffhanger at the end of every single chapter. It becomes boring and predictable. That said, I think that that's what keeps the less interested readers, um... interested (good word choice right there, uh-huh.) Also, whenever a character gets a premonition, say, a dream for example, that dream is always used as an intense detail. "It was all happy but should he tell them about his dream?" "She couldn't stop thinking about her dream." "He felt a sinking feeling: that place looked just like the one in his DREEEAM."
Okay, so I don't like the constant mention of bad things to come. Sometimes they fit and move the plot along, sometimes they just interrupt a moment that didn't need interrupting.
So what do you guys think about Percy Jackson and his demigod friends? I love the books; they're not advanced literature or anything (far from it), but they make me laugh and I like the idea of Greek mythology tangling with the modern world.
Also, last word of advice: if you are considering reading these books after watching the terrible movie that they made out of it, you're in for a treat. They're a million times better.
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