Welcome to the Sea of Monsters! This is the sequel to Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief and was published by Disney Hyperion on April 1st, 2006. If you missed my review of the first book, I would recommend reading that one before continuing here. My Character and Plot overviews will be (mostly) spoiler free, but my Thoughts section will contain spoilers for this book and its 2013 movie adaptation. If you have yet to pick up this amazing series, I would read it before exploring my reviews! If you’re fine having this one spoiled for you, then forge ahead and enjoy!
Characters
Tyson
Tyson is Percy’s younger half-brother on the godly side, which naturally means he is more than he initially appears to be. He is absolutely thrilled to have Percy as family and is as unswervingly loyal as Percy is. He is an absolute joy to read, and getting to experience him through Percy’s eyes adds several layers to this book that I’ll explore a bit more in my personal thoughts.
Clarisse LaRue
In the first book, Clarisse serves as the Camp Half-Blood bully. She is aggressive towards the other campers and is incredibly stubborn. While she does have a bit of a soft side for those brave enough to go looking for it, we don’t see it in this installation. But for as hostile as she can be, it cannot be said that she isn’t one of the bravest (if not most impulsive) characters in this book and series.
Plot
This book begins with a dream. While it initially makes little sense to us or to Percy, it will soon become clear what’s been happening since the events of the previous book. Annabeth and Percy have gotten closer as friends, though things still get complicated at times - especially when it comes to Tyson or Luke. When they make it to Camp Half-Blood, they discover that the camp is in danger: the magical borders that keep it safe are failing. An unexpected camper is granted the opportunity to go on a quest for the one thing that may save Camp Half-Blood. Similar to the first book, the main conflict surrounding the quest is not the only conflict in the book. The ending sets up the third book with a cliffhanger nobody saw coming.
Thoughts
First and foremost, I love seeing realistic growth with these characters. Percy is (slowly) maturing and is still navigating this world of monsters, gods, and myths turned reality. He still makes mistakes, but that makes him a more relatable and compelling character to follow as he matures. While Annabeth refuses to give up hope on finding goodness in Luke, she is also growing in the sense of slow self-discovery. This is shown best when she uncovers her fatal flaw. She is a daughter of Athena who comes from a difficult family situation. It makes sense that someone who has only ever been able to rely on herself would think of herself as the best person for any job and capable of making something to last millennia. It also reveals yet again how much care Riordan takes in establishing his world and the characters in it. We don’t discover Percy’s flaw in this book, but careful readers may be able to figure it out before the conclusion of the series.
I want to delve into Percy’s reluctance to accept Tyson as family. I found it very interesting that Percy found it easier to protect the human-appearing stranger that was Tyson from school bullies than he was his half-cyclops brother from his camp friends. Beyond that, he was embarrassed of Tyson. But when you consider that maybe it wasn’t entirely that Tyson was a cyclops that bothered Percy, but that it was his supposed friends doing the bullying, it adds another layer. He cared about their opinions and wanted to be accepted by them. Reading this, it initially seems easy to judge Percy for this - after all, blood is thicker than water, right? But I actually really love that Riordan wrote Percy this way. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that Percy is thirteen in this book, facing some of the same problems adult heroes from classic Greek mythology were facing. And Percy does show growth, he eventually accepts Tyson as his brother, cares for him, and even loves him by the end of this (relatively short) book.
Getting a deeper insight into Clarisse’s actions was definitely enlightening. Looking into her relationship with her father, Ares, makes us more sympathetic towards her. We already understood that her violent tendencies were likely inherited from her dad, but seeing him bully and threaten his own daughter was a curveball. And the pride on her face observed when she successfully completed her quest and appeased Ares was the softest we’ve seen her so far. It was a welcome new dynamic to an otherwise flat and predictable character. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the plot, we don’t see much of Grover in this book, but he does come back prominently in the next one. It also gives Percy and Annabeth more time to sort through their friendship and priorities in the inevitable war against Kronos.
Speaking of Kronos, the stakes are turned up. He is - literally - growing by the day. This quest is important because they have everything to gain by obtaining the Golden Fleece and saving the camp or everything to lose by failing and allowing Kronos to rise that much sooner. Luke - though under Kronos’ control - is a clever villain. He knows Percy’s and Annabeth’s fatal flaws and priorities as well as how to exploit them for his own agenda. I like that the quest in this book both relates to Kronos but also remains its own story. I also greatly enjoyed the Odyssey feeling of this story. To face the sirens, Circe’s island, Polyphemus, and Scylla and Charybdis while continuing to modernize one of mythology’s most well-known epics is impressive.
However - as amazing as Riordan’s ability to tell this story is - I personally find this book to be my least favorite in the series. There are absolutely notable moments that I enjoy - the entire chapter with the sirens and the ending being some of them - but compared to the other books, I find that this one least captures my interest. Overall, I would rate this a solid 8/10. It is still a phenomenal book, but it just doesn't stand out to me as much as others do.
To finish off this review, I do want to take a moment (paragraph?) to compare this book to its 2013 movie adaptation. Starting with the good, Logan Lerman and Alexandra Daddario (along with the rest of the cast) once again give solid performances as Percy and Annabeth. I thought the actors playing Tyson (Douglas Smith) and Clarisse (Leven Rambin) also did a fantastic job bringing these new characters to the big screen. This movie definitely has iconic comedic moments, and the soundtrack is solid. Its biggest downside? The actual adaptation of the plot. It’s obvious that Riordan was not involved with the making of these movies because while things go somewhat smoothly in the beginning (well enough for the time constraints in place for a film), the ending - in my opinion - is a disaster. It completely diverts from source material as though it were attempting to end the series with this film, but it then ends the movie on the cliffhanger of Thalia’s revival the same as the book does. It is a confusing mess that I can’t make heads or tails of, which is unfortunate. Had it better followed the plot of the original book, it may have made for a wonderful adaptation. I would watch this movie as its own entity, but to compare it to the book ultimately leads to disappointment. Thankfully, there is a silver lining: the TV series releasing in the next year or two starring Walker Scobell in the titular role seems to be shaping up to be a wild success. With Riordan’s involvement, I am incredibly excited for its eventual release.
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