Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Sea of Monsters - Rick Riordan

When it comes to a book series, I really like to pick the next book up as soon as I put the one I just finished down. Sometimes it's super easy and other times it feels like a daunting task, however, the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series has fallen into the former category.

These books are such easy, fast reads but I find them quite entertaining and I had to make sure I picked up the fourth book today so I would have it upon completion of The Titan's Curse.

In book two, The Sea of Monsters, Percy finds himself in yet another boarding school and other than being made fun of for being friends with Tyson, a huge homeless kid who is a little slower than everyone else, the year has been relatively quite.

With Annabeth's arrival, Percy soon learns that Camp Half-Blood is in trouble and that Chiron has been removed as activities director with accusations of poisoning the tree that provides the magical boarders around camp.

On top of all of this, Percy has been having dreams about Grover who is in trouble and needs rescuing. In order to save the camp from being overtaken by monsters and his close friend from death, Percy must go to the Sea of Monsters to retrieve both his friend and the healing Golden Fleece. It's a race against time to save his best friend AND get the Golden Fleece to Camp Half-Blood.

Besides the mythological aspect, I think a big part of what I like about this series is that there is a continuous story, the bigger picture, but there are also various smaller stories that give you satisfaction for having a start and an end. I like how each book has had its own "right now" opponent but that it's not just peppered in as filler.

I also like the fact that each book seems to introduce you to a new god or two and they're like the frontrunner for that book. We met more in The Lightning Thief than we did in The Sea of Monsters but it's nice not to just have them all dumped on you from the get go.

I've already started book 4 so look for that in the next few days as well as Leaving Gee's Bend by Irene Latham.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan

So as you can tell, I've kind of been MIA around here the last week. We moved last week and it has been quite hectic since and even though we've been here since Tuesday, we're just now spending the night in the house. It doesn't quite feel like home and I'm kind of depressed. I really hope this feeling goes away soon. Anyway, I wanted to get my review of The Lightning Thief posted before too long and before procrastination sunk in.

In anticipation of the movie based on Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, I decided that no matter what I was going to read the book before seeing the movie. My husband and I went last weekend and although the movie was enjoyable, this is yet another case where the book was a lot better.

The Lightning Thief follows twelve year old Perseus (Percy) Jackson as he learns that everything he's been learning about in his mythology class is not just a myth. After Percy is accused of stealing Zeus's master bolt, he is taken to Camp Half-Blood to hone his skills and learn about this new life and his father. A prophecy sends him on a quest with his two friends, Grover and Annabeth, to retrieve the bolt and if it is not returned by the summer solstice then war will break out in Olympus.

As many will say, this book reminds them of the Harry Potter series and although that rings true, it wasn't to the point where I couldn't finish a chapter without thinking, "Well that's not what Harry would have done," or something similar. I picked this book up expecting similarities because of the synopsis I had read so it didn't take anything away from the book.

I think part of the reason I liked this book so much is because I enjoy mythology. I took a mythology class my freshman year of high school (I actually came across the paperback I used in the class while moving) and was thoroughly interested in the subject matter. I will say this about the movie, the visual effects were fantastic but some of the storyline was changed and it just left me slightly irked.

Look for a few more updates coming tomorrow morning or afternoon.

How to be Popular - Meg Cabot

I have officially read my first Meg Cabot book. I picked up How to be Popular earlier this week because 1) it was a stand-alone book and 2) I wanted something of an easy read.

How to be Popular follows sixteen year old Steph Laundry as she tries to shed a phrase that has haunted her for five years. As she helps her best friend, Jason, clean out his grandmother's attic, she comes across a book on how to be popular and decides to give it a go.

As long as she follows the instructions in the book, she's guaranteed to make it into the A-club.

While I enjoyed this book and appreciated Steph, Jason, and Becca, How to be Popular was kind of predictable, I saw the ending coming from a mile away. Girl strives to be popular, girl gets in with the coveted "in" crowd, girl realizes things were better before.

One thing I really liked about Steph was that she was nice, even when it was hard. Her brief stint never changed how she acted towards others and the very end (literally, last page) had me thinking how nice she really was. If I were in her position and someone treated me like that, there's no way I'd even try to be nice. This was definitely a cute book and I look forward to reading more by Meg Cabot.

The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen

Cori, a girl from my online book club, decided to send the ARC she won from Goodreads.com of Sarah Addison Allen's The Girl Who Chased the Moon on tour. Ten people get a week each to read the book before sending it to the next person on the list and I was stop number one. I was pretty stoked to get a chance to participate in this tour because this was my first ARC, as well as the first book by Sarah Addison Allen that I've had the pleasure of reading.

To be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect. I wanted to go into this book blind so I avoided any synopsis and refused to even look at the back of the book. The book follows two girls, Emily Benedict who has come to Mullaby for the first time and Julia Winterson, a woman who has returned to the place she grew up but can't wait to get out of.

After her mom passes away, teenager Emily Benedict moves to Mullaby, North Carolina to live with the grandfather she never knew existed. Being the new girl is never easy, but it seems to be slightly worse for Emily because everyone seems to choose their words very carefully upon meeting her. She gradually finds out more and more about her mom's past, of which she never spoke of to Emily. She soon meets Julia, her next door neighbor who sees a bit of herself in Emily, and a charming and captivating boy named Win Coffey. Soon after arriving in Mullaby, Emily is plunged into a world of strange and wonderous things that seem to surround the Coffey family.

Julia Winterson is woman who returned to town after her dad passed away and is counting down the months until her time in Mullaby is over, so she can once again leave. She's got a troubled past and part of that past is in the form of Sawyer Alexander, who just can't seem to stay away from her.

I really enjoyed reading this book because the picture that Allen painted of the town just seemed so vivid to me and I liked the alternating POV. I became eager to finish reading because I wanted to see where the story went and when I finished, I wanted more.

The downside to this book was that it could have been a little longer, at least another hundred pages or so. The characters were likable but I would have liked to get to know them more and, especially with Julia's story, I would have liked to see that expanded into. I felt kind of let down at the end of her story and I hope there will be a second book to placate me, and other readers who feel the same as me. It was like things were explained a bit too much at the beginning and towards the end it felt like there was a rush to finish the story. There's something special about Win and Emily's story is pretty much oriented around that but when it gets to where he's basically saying "this is me," there's not really an explanation as to how or why.

The Girl Who Chased the Moon is an OK book and although it's a bit predictable at times, it's a light read and I recommend reading it at least once.