Thumbs up for The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. Children’s fantasy.
My coworker read and enjoyed this, and he has high standards (higher than mine, in fact), so I felt that the odds were pretty good I’d enjoy it. In fact, it was quite a bit better than I’d expected. Despite the fact that he’s writing for preteens, Riordan doesn’t make the mistake of talking down to his audience. The incorportation of Greek myths with modern-day reality was often clever and sometimes genius (my favorite is Medusa in a burqa, selling garden statuary). Not only do I want to read the rest of the series, I may even – gasp! – watch the movie to see how it stacks up.
“Well,” he told me, “[pinochle] is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all civilized young men to know the rules.”
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