Mrs. Shelly Uner

Let me start by stating the obvious: on the surface, the Percy Jackson series appears to be just another pathetic Harry Potter knock-off. The characters and settings are similar in several instances throughout the series, and perhaps most evident in the first book, The Lightning Thief. The writing is definitely juvenile, which I suppose is to be expected with a series written for the late elementary, early middle school crowd; however, I really anticipated a growth and maturity of the writing style as the series went on. Riordan has nothing on Rowling here. The series is also rife with references to current culture, dating it in a way the almost assures the series will have a hard time lasting through the ages or becoming any sort of classic. Each book assumes a bit that you may or may not have read its predecessor and repeats plot elements from previous books. I could really spit at the number of times I had to read that Percy, “like most heroes [demi-gods],” was ADD and dyslexic. Ok, you’ve said this in book one, and explained (falsely) how dyslexia works, I don’t need to hear the same explanation EVERY time Percy has to read a sign. Back to the comparison with Rowling, the reader may here Harry’s destiny repeated from time to time, but not verbatim, and usually with new information, or a different twist. As for character development, Percy and his cohorts age chronologically about four years over the course of the five book series, but their maturity levels stay about the same. Even though their lives are in danger from challenge to challenge, book to book, the self-evaluation and personal growth is limited. A 16 year old Percy has almost nothing in common internally with a 16 year old Harry. If the characters could address each other, Harry would probably tell Percy to “Grow up.” Perhaps we’d do better to compare Percy Jackson with Percy Weasley at the same book numbers. There just doesn’t seem to be as much at stake for the demi-gods and I don’t have nearly the same pathos for them as I did for