Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters

Title: The Sea of Monsters
Author: Rick Riordan
Genre: Children's, Fantasy, Mythos
Source: Library Paperback
Rating: 3 out of 5 paws


Percy Jackson and friends are back in a new tale of adventure and danger.  When Percy begins having dreams about Grover being in danger, he knew he needed to do something.  But at the same time Camp Half Blood has been attacked and Talhia's tree that is protecting the camp was poisoned.  No one knows who did it, but Percy and Annabeth have an idea of how to save it.  Add in a Cyclops half brother and a stubborn female and you have yourself a epic tale with thrills and drama.

So this one fell a little short for me.  I read the first book and enjoyed it more than I did this one.  There didn't seem to be as much mythos or danger or something.  It was missing something and I cannot put my finger on what that something is.  As someone who loves mythology, I think this book didn't have as much in as the last one did.  Sure there were short mentions of the Golden Fleece and Cyclopes but I think the last book delved more into the myth stories to make something new.  While this is something different, I don't think it played off the myths as much.  There was a little bit more humor in the first one as well and the absence of Grover was really prevalent.


We seem some familiar characters like Clarisse and Luke both still have the same personalities, though Clarisse seems to have grown up just a little bit and is learning how to play nice with others.  We don't see Charion, or any of the gods as we did in the first one so I was a little disappointed in that as well.  I loved Tyson, though I wasn't a little more from him and hope we see more from him in the next novel.  He was such a sweet character and so precious I wonder how he would change as the story progresses will he remain sweet?  I guess we will see.


I like that they sail to the sea this time, but it's the Bermuda Triangle.  I am not sure how I feel about ancient Greek gods centering around America, I get the books say the Pantheon follows civilization, but it seems wrong to me probably because there would be other Pantheons already in place.  While there were a few things that didn't sit so well with me this was a decent book.  It is good for the age range, but I think someone older, such as myself it's a little...simplistic, on the surface type of thing.  I want something with more depth and compels me to keep reading.  Not that this book/series doesn't have that, just in a different way that appeals better to a younger audience.  I would recommend it to young readers and some adult readers as well for a break from the norm. 

Eversong

Title: Eversong

Author: A.C. Salter

Genre: Fantasy

Source: Kindle Ebook

Rating: 2 out of 5 paws

Elora's past is filled with half-truths and mysteries.  SHe's been an  orphan her whole life, raised by her uncle.  Then one day she finds out she isn't even from Earth, but another realm called Thea.  Her lineage is a mystery but the general consensus is that if her existence was discovered many people would be out to kill her.  As she begins to spiral into a world of chaos and monsters, she begins a journey of self discovery and is determined to prove herself worthy of life rather than being judged to die.  Will she be able to convince those around her of her worth and ability to help bring down the greatest evil to threaten humanity?

I started out really enjoying the story, it was moving fast and was very interesting idea, but then it hit a brick wall and started to get, meh.  At about the half way point I started to get a little bored with the story, I feel as though the revelation of Elora's paternity happened too early and there wasn't any other, suspenseful event to look forward to other than the big battle.  The mythos created in the story happened slow, and felt like it was being borrowed from other stories rather than being uniquely created.  There were a few things that I had a hard time accepting such as a leviathan having the ability to disrupt electricity and electronics including a pace-maker.  I feel like there could have been a different creature to do this.

The romance between Bray and Elora felt like it was thrown into the story to add a little bit of "difficulty".  They just meet and instantly it is love and Bray risks losing all the training he has done thus far to become the Shodjak.  When Elora's paternity is revealed I expected  more of a reaction, more emotion to be displayed aside from her convincing Diagus to keep her alive.  There was just too much in the novel that felt wrong or out of place for this reader to be able to really enjoy it.  While the premise of the story itself is rather interesting, I found it to be anti-climatic especially the ending.

There were so many different grammar and spelling errors that also took away from the enjoyment of this book.  There were many times when one sentence would be a paragraph long with no commas or other punctuation to break it up.  The writing other was fine enough, but just struggled to hold my attention or make me feel connected or empathize with any of the characters.  I would not recommend this book.