A thread where people can leave ideas for books that they want to talk about. I’m planning to start attempting to post articles on the site because I have way too much free time this Ramadan and frankly, I am sick of being bored of it. The most recent update that I’ve seen talks about having other articles besides sporkings, so I am thinking of maybe reviewing books instead of ripping them apart, mutilating their corpses and setting them on fire. Leave any ideas for me in the thread and I will see what I can do. Thanks :)

Yay! Thanks, I’ll try and start sometime soon :) First book on the list is a Percy Jackson book, personally because I feel that they are filled with one dimensional characters and abuse of mythology but have some saving graces as well.

Then it’s decided… PERCY JACKSON IT IS!!! :D

Soldiers of Salamis by Javier Cercas

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat

Nights at the Circus or Wise Children by Angela Carter

Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor

Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit and Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson

The Road To Wigan Pier by George Orwell

Aquamarine by Carol Anshaw

This is strictly longform narrative prose. Would you be interested in reading poetry also? I read a lot of poetry and plays, and can rattle off even more books of poetry if you’d rather read that instead.

Note: This list was created in the hope that none of these books would be hard to find in an English-language library, except for Soldiers of Salamis, which is about the Spanish Civil War and the nature of memory in people and societies. All of these books are good and make you think.

Ok, here we go! This is a review of the first chapter of the first book in the ‘Percy Jackson and the Olympians’ series by Rick Riordan. I first heard about the series from some of my friends pretty recently (I am late to find out about EVERYTHING) and I thought I would give it a read. No offence, Percy Jackson fans, but it doesn’t really live up to the hype in my opinion. I mean it isn’t a bad book, not by a long shot but it doesn’t click with me, if you can understand what I’m saying.

Of course, there have been complaints about the book by people other than me. For example, some of them criticise the characters as being one dimensional, blatant sociopaths (especially Annabeth for some reason). For me, the main criticism I have is the pacing. I have finished about two or three of the books so far and what really gets to me is the choppy handling of time. Things just seem to happen really quickly sometimes, and other times the plot is plodding along on its merry way.

Moving on.

I’d like to say that the name is pretty damn cool. Who wouldn’t want to be known as a Lightning Thief?!

Moving on again. Damn, I’m bad at this.

The first chapter is called ‘I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher’. I am not proud to say that the name had me in mad hoots of laughter for about ten seconds. But it’s a pretty good name, pretty close to something a twelve year old half-human-half-mythical-creature would say.

He goes on to say how dangerous it is being a half-blood, and how we should be thankful we’re not, and so on and so forth. Well, I’m starting to sympathise with him a little. I mean, the guy’s obviously in a tough situation and it’s taking a lot of his strength not to go, you know, loony.

So he tells us his name is Percy Jackson, and up until a few months ago he was a student at a boarding school in New York called Yancy Academy.

Am I a troubled kid? Yeah. You could say that.

Hmmm… my curiosity has been piqued. Tell me more, Percy Jackson! Pulls up chair

I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it,

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. Whoa. No, Mr. Riordan, this is not how you gain your readers’ sympathy. He just sounds like a whiny little kid now! And we already know your life’s short, dude; you’re only twelve!

He goes on to say that things went downhill in May of last year when his class went on a field trip to Manhattan’s Museum of Art. What I really like here is how Mr. Riordan has described his companions in the school bus.

twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers

Hahaha! No seriously, hahahaha! Because that is great characterisation there, letting Percy describe his class like that. It feels authentic. I know when I was in sixth grade I thought everyone except my friends were crazy. But then again, we were all insane in sixth grade.

A teacher called Mr. Brunner is then described.

Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorised wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee.

This guy’s on the cover of GQ this year for sure! But the motorised wheelchair bit sounds important so I’ll log that away. Apparently Mr. Brunner’s class is the only one in which Percy does not fall asleep, so that says something I suppose. He also has a collection of Roman armour and weapons so that’s pretty cool I guess.

So after Nancy Bobofit (snerk) is mentioned, we find about his best friend Grover.

Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must’ve been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin.

I like the short sentences while Grover was being introduced. They add emphasis, which is nice. And then Mr. Riordan throws this absolute gem at us.

On top of all of that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs.

We all love emphasising how disabled our best friends are, don’t we? Especially the ones with muscular disorders. I’m not sure if it’s just me, but I don’t like Percy very much. At least counter your descriptions with some good things about Grover, dude! Oh yeah the whole crippled and walks funny thing sounds pretty important so I’m gonna log that away too.

Meanwhile Percy is getting angrier and angrier at Nancy, who is throwing sandwich pieces at Grover’s head. Is this kid ok? Nancy, I mean. I know she’s in sixth grade, but- oh, never mind.

And then suddenly we are told that Mr. Brunner is leading the museum tour, moving into one of the reasons why I dislike the series. PACING. Pacing is very important, Mr. Riordan. Before they get to the museum, Percy says:

In-school suspension would’ve been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.

So this is supposed to be an ominous line that leads into a break inside the chapter itself. We’re not told that they actually arrived at the museum, and because he was the first teacher mentioned by name in the book I assume that he is leading the museum tour. I don’t know, maybe I’m just nitpicking but something in that transition just doesn’t sit well with me.

Percy’s attempting to listen to what Mr. Brunner had to say because he finds it interesting and really wants to learn. That’s the spirit, dude! But since everybody else was talking he takes it upon himself to tell them to shut up, which leads into the introduction of the second teacher.

Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker.

Right, since everybody who wears a leather jacket rides a Harley. I don’t think age should matter very much when it comes to wearing a leather jacket, because there was this teacher in my old school who wore a leather jacket and rode a vintage motorcycle, and she was in her early thirties. Not to mention we were in India. Plus, a lot of bikers (at least the ones I know) are like fifty year old men. So it’s not really that surprising. But then again, we are reading from the narrative perspective of a twelve year old. We are clearly told the distinction between good teachers and bad teachers in this book. It’s almost impossible to miss. Seriously.

From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn.

It’s understandable to dislike one of your pupils but I’m pretty sure this is overkill. So we now know Mrs. Dodds = bad news. Percy don’t like her? We hate her goddamn guts. Ok moving on. After one punishment that Percy receives at the hands of Mrs. Dodds, he tells Grover that he doesn’t think she’s human. Grover agrees, completely serious. THIS IS FORESHADOWING AT ITS BEST. You know something bad’s gonna happen, you just know it. She is not human.

So after a bit, Nancy pushes Percy a bit too far by being an immature little idiot and whispering something about a naked guy on the grave marker and he gets back at her by telling her to shut up. The class starts laughing, and Mr. Brunner starts quizzing Percy on Greek mythology, Kronos eating his kids, etc etc. I learnt something new though! The Titans were the parents of the Greek gods. Yay I feel slightly less stupid now.

Percy and Nancy hate each other a little more, Mr. Brunner tells Percy to get smarter and they all go outside for lunch. They chat about how Mr. Brunner has astronomical expectations of Percy and how he shouldn’t since Percy has ADHD and dyslexia and all that. No offence meant to people who have ADHD and dyslexia.

Then Nancy comes over, acts like a fool and drops her lunch on Grover. Damn, if Mr. Riordan wanted me to hate her he’s doing a pretty good job of it. Percy gets pissed, and the next thing we know Nancy’s in the fountain. Naturally, the first teacher on the scene is Mrs. Dodds, who immediately blames Percy and not Nancy for acting like an idiot. So Mrs. Dodds drags Percy away to the Greek and Roman section so she can murder his face off, thus ending the series on a horribly sad note. Not really, but I expect that is what she wants to do. But then THIS happens:

Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons.Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn’t human.

NO SHIT.

She was a shrivelled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, ad she was about to slice me to ribbons.

I think there are a little too many uses of the word ‘and’ in that sentence. Doesn’t sit well with me.

And then Mr. Brunner appears from out of nowhere, throws Percy a sword and Percy then kills Mrs. Dodds.This is also another part of the novels that some people dislike. When monsters are killed in the series, they explode into powder. I can see why this is trying to lower the gore factor a bit (it’s aimed at a young audience) but still. When things die, usually there’s residue left. Usually. But these are Greek monsters, so hey! What do I know? shrugs. Also try and make it last a little longer! It feels like I could’ve blinked and missed the whole thing.

After the smoke clears, Percy finds out that there’s nobody else there but him. Did he imagine the whole thing? He goes around asking people what happened, and is told that Mrs. Dodds never existed. LOLWUT?! What a trip.

So that is the end of the first chapter which Amazon so graciously provided. I’d like to say that it really did make for an entertaining read, and I wouldn’t blame people for going and buying the book. It’s pretty good. Now I’m not going to be all snobbish and say,

“Oh I have higher standards than the drooling masses, it’s such a shame that wonderful literature is not available for esteemed literary CONNOISSEURS like me. Oh the pain. There is no meaning to life anymore!”

No. Some teen fiction is good once in a while, but because of some books that have been on the market recently, YA fiction has gotten a bad rep and a lot of people now steer clear of those books. Now I know there is a lot of excellent YA fiction out there too, but personally I haven’t read any particularly good ones. I’ll probably go book hunting in a month and comb the local library to see if I can find something awesome.

But until then, this is Potatoman signing off. Hope you liked the article, and I’ll see you later! :)

Haha I knew I was nitpicking a little too much! Sorry… :P Maybe I’ll try a review of a book that I’m more familiar with next. To be completely honest, reviews are a little outside my comfort zone. Writing prose? Fine with me. Writing an analytical review? I’ll… get back to you on that. But I’m glad you read it though. Thanks for the well rounded criticism, I appreciate it. :D I’ll try and review better next time.

@Pryotra Very true, I liked this series a lot better than some of the other books that came after Harry Potter.

still I feel like it’s a little too much in the shadow of the Potter series.

Yeah, Harry Potter set a pretty big milestone in children’s literature (in my opinion) but Percy Jackson is a brave attempt to step out of that shadow. I just wish people would stop likening EVERYTHING to Harry Potter. The series is amazing and I got my childhood nickname because of it, but people move on, please!

trying to make the gods ‘good’ rather than more or less amoral

Yeah, it’s not Disney’s Hercules level, but still softened. However, I appreciated that

I know, right?

I never read Harry Potter, so perhaps that helped me enjoy Percy Jackson more. :P

Seriously, though, it’s a totally different scale. I don’t think the Percy Jackson books are really trying to be Harry Potter.

The first book was pretty HP inspired, but as time went on, it kind of moved away from it’s origins, and started to get more confident.

I’d say that the biggest thing that it had against it were the titles that started Percy Jackson and the _____ which sound like all the other HP readalikes Full Name and the Whatever.

:P Any suggestions for books that I should review? I want to do as many as I possibly can, since the Lightning Thief was my first review. Personally, I think it sucked. I nitpicked too much, and I think my humour was a bit forced. Ugh… oh well, keep the suggestions coming. Please! :D

@organiclead Hmm… I haven’t heard of it. I should look it up. Thanks for mentioning it! :)

I want to do as many as I possibly can, since the Lightning Thief was my first review. Personally, I think it sucked. I nitpicked too much, and I think my humour was a bit forced.

In light of this comment, my suggestion would be that you revise your review of The Lightning Thief (and make it more of a review and less of a spork). Unless you just have no interest in the book anymore, you should try to make what you’ve already done better. If you think it sucks, figure out why and work on those things. It’s hard to get better at something if you give up after an unsatisfactory first draft.

If you really want to be done with this particular book, though, I would suggest picking a book you are really passionate about (either positively or negatively) and reviewing that rather than reviewing books that people suggest to you, at least at first. It’s a lot easier to write about things you have a genuine interest in than it is to pick up a book that you may not care anything about and attempt to review it. It doesn’t have to be really great book or a really bad book. It can be obscure or popular. It just has to be something you are interested in. Once you get better at writing about books you have an interest in, you will be better able to write reviews of books that others suggest to you.

Just my two cents.

@NeuroticPlatypus Your two cents are worth a lot :D That’s actually a pretty good idea. I have a couple of books lying around the house that are pretty good (at least to me) so maybe I’ll review them next. After I decently revise the draft of the Lightning Thief’s review, as you said, of course. Thank you!

Oh I think I’ve read the Book Thief, it sounds familiar… but I haven’t read Jasper Jones. Thanks for letting me know about them.