The Sea of Monsters

This is the second book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.  No matter what I think of the Rick Riordan publicity machine I have to hand it to whoever decided to clearly number the books in this series.  I detest not knowing what to read next but these seem fairly uniformly clear about labeling.

Fans of Percy Jackson need not fear, because it only takes 17 pages to our first all out Monsters vs. Percy battle.  And don’t worry, Riordan again drops plenty of hints that it’s coming.  Sea of Monsters offers just as much action as its predecessor, but I might have enjoyed it a little more.  There are some new fun characters – evil Tantalus has set himself up as camp director and some of my favorite parts are the descriptions of him trying to score food.  Percy has a new sidekick as well.

Yes, this book is mainly moving from battle to battle.  Anyone familiar with The Odyssey will recognize many of the stops of the sea journey and Riordan’s interpretation of the legendary obstacles.  It was also just a lot of fun.  Riordan is pretty liberal with his interpretations (there’s more than a little poetic license necessary to convert wild, debauched centaurs into friendly “party ponies”) but none but the most ardent purist will resent his changes.

Sex, Nudity, Dating – Annabeth was looking in Percy’s bedroom window.  Again it is clear that the gods have children with whomever they please.  This time we meet children of gods+wood nymphs as well as human+bear.  Some hugging and a kiss on the cheek.
Profanity – While not a curse word, “retard” makes the short list of insults I am not okay with.  “Oh my gods” is used a few times.
Death, Violence and Gore – The battle sequences are sort of blow-by-blow accounts of violence, and again there are a lot of them.  As an adult I didn’t find them particularly gory or fraught with anxiety, but younger ones may feel differently.  Tantalus is a player in this story – his claim to fame is that he killed his own son and served him for dinner.
Drugs, Alcohol and Smoking – A public service announcement in a cab says “when I’m out buying wine…I always buckle up.”  The camp director is still Dionysus.
Frightening or Intense Things – Laistrygonians (spelling variant Riordan’s choice not mine), who are giant cannibals make an appearance.  Stymphalian birds attack.  Hydra.  Zombies, skeleton humans and horses. Scylla and Charybdis, carnivorous sheep.  Riordan loves to play with the readers’ emotions, we’re often led to believe that someone is dead and then they sort of reappear later.