I found myself in a bit of a reading funk and picked up this book as I knew it was be light and easy to read. Thankfully, I also found it entertaining and sweet. It perhaps wasn't the best middle grade series I've started, but it has a certain charm and humor I appreciated.

Most of that comes from the voice of Percy Jackson. I was pretty impressed with the narrative voice which seemed appropriately young. I like Percy a lot too. The characters in general weren't very well developed but they at least showed the type of bravery that I appreciate in characters.

This story is perhaps best enjoyed superficially. If you take more than a moment to consider the plot and characters, the holes are definitely there. I understand that this is middle grade, but there was still a bit of artlessness to the writing at points, especially as the story tried to feed us things in bits and pieces. There were too many instances of, "he started to tell me but then didn't because of reasons," and "She knew the answer but didn't want to tell me because of reasons," and etc.

But, as I said, I enjoyed it and will definitely add the rest of the series to my reading list.