The Sea of Monsters. (Percy Jackson and the Olympians #2) Rick Riordan. 2006. 279 pages. [Source: Library]
First sentence: My nightmare started like this. I was standing on a deserted street in some little beach town. It was the middle of the night. A storm was blowing. Wind and rain ripped at the palm trees along the sidewalk. Pink and yellow stucco buildings lined the street, their windows boarded up. A block away, past a line of hibiscus bushes, the ocean churned. Florida, I thought.
Premise/plot: The Sea of Monsters is the sequel to The Lightning Thief. A year has passed since the events of the first [fantasy] novel. Percy will soon be returning to Camp Half-blood and rejoining his friends, frenemies, and perhaps actual enemies. He's been having troubling dreams the past few days--mainly concerning his friend Grover. He senses danger. He just doesn't know how grave the danger is...for all of them. The tree that [helps] protect the camp from monsters is dying; it has in fact been poisoned. To save the camp may require another quest, but, not everyone thinks the camp needs to be saved. (Could their be traitors at camp still???)
Annabeth, Percy, and TYSON (a new character introduced) team up to save Grover...but their quest is UNofficial. They do not have permission to leave camp let alone permission to go on a quest for the golden fleece. Their quest will not take them all across the United States but down to Florida to THE SEA OF MONSTERS which is off the coast of Florida. They'll face monsters, monsters, and more monsters. But will their quest be successful?
My thoughts: I have so many memories of The Lightning Thief. Every chapter of the first novel is super familiar. But there was something delightful about reading this second novel. It has been so many years since I first read it (it would have been circa 2006), that it was like experiencing this fantasy-adventure-questing novel for the first time...again. That is rare (in my opinion.)
I liked Tyson. I did. I missed Grover being an active part of their adventure, but I didn't blame Tyson for being a replacement of sorts. Grover is in the book, just, not an active part of the quest. He's the point of the quest. I thought there were some great character-building scenes in this one. I thought we got a chance to better get to know Annabeth. The siren sequence was quite something. Percy truly risked all--not only for Annabeth, but later for Grover and for Tyson.
© 2022 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
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