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A review by mo_mentan
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
4.0
i so wanted to love this.
i wanted to listen to all the audiobooks and get back into childhood memories, fall in love with the story all over again and read all the books of the percy jackson extended universe (which are a whole fucking lot).
but i didn't love it. i liked it, really. it made me nostalgic, i remembered so much. but it just didn't come alive the way other books (harry potter **embarassed sigh**) come.
maybe it was the audiobook. i remembered percy's voice quite well, but in german of course. and bernstein's rendition just didn't quite seem to fit. it wasn't sarcastic enough and the emotions didn't quite come through.
the story is exciting and fun, but also not very intricate and the world building just doesn't have as much soul as, again, hogwarts for exmaple.
and this makes me sad. because i think i'm looking for something i can love as much as harry potter, have all the nostalgic feels and not have to deal with a transphobic asshole of an author.
because rick riordan is great. while this book is quite your generic white boy meets white girl and has a funny (poc? i think that was mostly the movie) sidekick, riordan listened to his fans, and the newer books have much, much better representation. he's just a dear.
which is why i'm even more annoyed about my own overanalization of this world. because there are quite some strange moral implications.
for one, percy is fighting for the very much unfair status quo. kronos is a fascist, for sure, but zeus and his buddies aren't quite your local queer feminist revolutionaries either.
i think riordan did well to make the greek gods the gods of the western world and being ambiguous on the way they morph into other gods or the way the christian/jewish/muslim god etc. might exist as well. but the thing about the centre of the western world being in new york - i don't know. also, wouldn't this be the territory of native american gods? thr thing about thomas jefferson being a son of athena certainly didn't sit right with me - at least as a good thing. i can totally see the greek gods being colonizers, but please don't let your heroes fight FOR them then.
if i go on reading, i'm sure the characters will develop more depth (again, like with harry potter). but again i feel like there should be more there already. annabeth for example doesn't really do much cool stuff here yet.
i really like the character of percy's mom. we love an non-dead parent in ya fantasy anyway, but she's quite the feminist icon: working class, very traditionally feminine, caring and loving, but also bad ass. i love that it is her decision to get out of her abusive relationship.
her disappearance in the beginning surely is a good motivation for percy, but i think his grief just isn't done well, especially in the beginning when he has no hope she might still be alive yet.
there is a little fat shaming sprinkled in there and, even more prevalent, all the bad people seem to be ugly, which i don't like to see at all.
lastly, however, i want to thank rick riordan for his representation of adhd. i myself don't have it, but i have many friends who do (especially afab people who only found out in their late teens/twenties), and when i read this book, the stance my teachers/parents had on it was that it was simply children who couldn't sit still and an unnecessary diagnosis. so this waw the positive rep much needed. however, i cannot say whether it is accurate or not.
edit: after reading some of the other reviews including HILARIOUS quotes that i somehow didn't find that funny listeninf to the audiobook, maybe i should go on physically reading these. might be a bigger commitment, but worth a try. i would love to not only like these books, but fall in love with them again.
i wanted to listen to all the audiobooks and get back into childhood memories, fall in love with the story all over again and read all the books of the percy jackson extended universe (which are a whole fucking lot).
but i didn't love it. i liked it, really. it made me nostalgic, i remembered so much. but it just didn't come alive the way other books (harry potter **embarassed sigh**) come.
maybe it was the audiobook. i remembered percy's voice quite well, but in german of course. and bernstein's rendition just didn't quite seem to fit. it wasn't sarcastic enough and the emotions didn't quite come through.
the story is exciting and fun, but also not very intricate and the world building just doesn't have as much soul as, again, hogwarts for exmaple.
and this makes me sad. because i think i'm looking for something i can love as much as harry potter, have all the nostalgic feels and not have to deal with a transphobic asshole of an author.
because rick riordan is great. while this book is quite your generic white boy meets white girl and has a funny (poc? i think that was mostly the movie) sidekick, riordan listened to his fans, and the newer books have much, much better representation. he's just a dear.
which is why i'm even more annoyed about my own overanalization of this world. because there are quite some strange moral implications.
for one, percy is fighting for the very much unfair status quo. kronos is a fascist, for sure, but zeus and his buddies aren't quite your local queer feminist revolutionaries either.
i think riordan did well to make the greek gods the gods of the western world and being ambiguous on the way they morph into other gods or the way the christian/jewish/muslim god etc. might exist as well. but the thing about the centre of the western world being in new york - i don't know. also, wouldn't this be the territory of native american gods? thr thing about thomas jefferson being a son of athena certainly didn't sit right with me - at least as a good thing. i can totally see the greek gods being colonizers, but please don't let your heroes fight FOR them then.
if i go on reading, i'm sure the characters will develop more depth (again, like with harry potter). but again i feel like there should be more there already. annabeth for example doesn't really do much cool stuff here yet.
i really like the character of percy's mom. we love an non-dead parent in ya fantasy anyway, but she's quite the feminist icon: working class, very traditionally feminine, caring and loving, but also bad ass. i love that it is her decision to get out of her abusive relationship.
her disappearance in the beginning surely is a good motivation for percy, but i think his grief just isn't done well, especially in the beginning when he has no hope she might still be alive yet.
there is a little fat shaming sprinkled in there and, even more prevalent, all the bad people seem to be ugly, which i don't like to see at all.
lastly, however, i want to thank rick riordan for his representation of adhd. i myself don't have it, but i have many friends who do (especially afab people who only found out in their late teens/twenties), and when i read this book, the stance my teachers/parents had on it was that it was simply children who couldn't sit still and an unnecessary diagnosis. so this waw the positive rep much needed. however, i cannot say whether it is accurate or not.
edit: after reading some of the other reviews including HILARIOUS quotes that i somehow didn't find that funny listeninf to the audiobook, maybe i should go on physically reading these. might be a bigger commitment, but worth a try. i would love to not only like these books, but fall in love with them again.