"The Lightning Thief" (Percy Jackson & the Olympians Book One) by Rick Riordan

I had heard of these books before but really didn't pay any attention until I saw a preview for the upcoming movie, which looked to be every bit as good as the Harry Potter movies. This is a wonderful thing, since I know there are only two Harry Potter movies remaining, and I wondered what would take their place.

I had heard that the Percy Jackson books are not as good as the Harry Potter books but that they are still enjoyable. Well, I would say that I concur. The story itself is imaginative and entertaining. I'm interested enough in the characters and their situations that I would like to read Book Two: The Sea of Monsters. However, the writing is choppy, with lots of one-sentence paragraphs.

Kind of like this.

Pretty annoying, huh?

I thought so, anyway.

The name Rick Riordan sounded familiar to me, but it wasn't until I was about halfway through the book and I flipped to the back to read about the author that I figured it out. As soon as I saw that Riordan lives in San Antonio, I thought, Big Red Tequila. Sure enough, that's how I recognized his name. We read BRT years ago in Book Club, and it was not one of my favorites. My biggest complaint was about the main character. He seemed amorphous and vague rather than solid and believable, almost as if the author couldn't decide how to write the character and ended up with a mess of contradictions that were not cohesive. I digress, of course, especially since I didn't see a similar problem in this Percy Jackson book.

I will say that this might possibly be one of the only books where the movie version is better. (Oh, wait, I forgot about Under the Tuscan Sun, where the movie had a plot and the book didn't). I can't say for sure until I've actually seen the movie (which I do plan to do, though I'm not sure if I'll go to the theater or wait for the DVD), but action outweighs thought in this book and, judging by the preview, they've done a decent job making a good movie out of the story.