Title: Hunger Games
Author: Suzanne Collins
Series: Percy Jackson and the Olympians #1
Pages: 377
 

It’s the first time I going to use the ‘children’ tag, wow, never thought that time will come. I’m so engrossed in reading YA that I require romance in my reading, and because of that, I always, always choose romance over adventure when it comes to book. But screw it all, if this is what children’s books are, then, yeah, I’m cordially hopping to the fun.

My intro is always weird, lol. Digressing is my middle name; anyhow, I started reading the Percy Jackson series and just finished the first book, The Lightning Thief. It was über fun, hilarious and full of adventures. I really can’t count how many times I snickered, that always get the attention of my sister, who is closely paying attention on how I’m enjoying the book. What can I say, it was totally fun. The moment I open the book, and read the opening lines, it really caught my attention. If the first few lines are already full of sarcasm and wit, then I’m expecting more as I read the rest of the book (which, now that I’m done, proved me right!)

Percy is a demigod — half mortal, half god — greek gods. He is the son of Poseidon (the gods — maybe except Artemis — they have many lovers and always (well, I’m not quite sure though) have children with their mortal lovers in their occasional flings). But when World War II broke, which is done by the powerful children of the three powerful gods, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. The three took an oath not to have children with mortals, because their children are too powerful. But Zeus broke the treaty and soon Poseidon too, so here comes Percy. Since even ‘Smelly Gabe’ can’t cover his godly smell (hey, I can’t come up a better term that that, lol), his life is in danger from the underworld creatures. While on their way, they were attacked by Minotaur; luckily Percy killed it but unfortunately unable to save his mom. He is now staying in Half-Blood hill, a sort of a camp… wait, it is a camp! A camp for demigods like him. There he found out that he was indeed a half god, and he is the son of Poseidon. The perks of being son of Poseidon, he has the cabin all to himself. Fun, right, that was Percy thought at first, which turned out it wasn’t, kinda lonely though. Moving on, he also found out that there’s a prophecy about him. He was accused of stealing Zeus lightning bolt – which making “our”— mortals, nuclear bomb, a firecracker. So to clean his name, and well, since only heroes can do this, he went to a quest, along with Annabeth, daughter of Athena and Grover, who is satyr, to retrieve the missing weapon and also save his mom. Yes, in all in the life of a hero.

The fascinating thing about this book is the writing style. Mr. Riordan writing is clean, witty, plus how he use the popular mythology is absolute hilarious. Thinking gods in their robes, or sometimes naked (um, have you seen the statues, right? They are naked, or that was just me seeing rocks misplaced between their thighs, not a good sight *shakes head*). Well, forget what you learn from school, because the gods here are also living in the 21st century, and so they are now donning modern attire. Poseidon wearing bohemian short and Hawaiian style shirt or Ares rocking the biker outfit. And yes, Cerberus, needs some play time too. It was — I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but what the hell — it was really fun. Their adventure and how the author applied the Greek mythology were just wonderfully done.

Honestly, I don’t have any expectation with this book. When I’m reading YA, I want my romance tastefully done. This one, nothing, I just read it because I just like it. Maybe that’s a good thing too. So I’m just riding along and enjoying as it is, no strings attached. Now, if only my sister will let me rip off the plastic out of the newly bought book, I’ll probably have read half of the second book by now. Maybe tomorrow, if I can’t contain myself any longer.