The Lightning Thief
by Rick Riordan

The lightning thief takes place in New York City.The story is about a boy named Percy Jackson who goes to a private school for troubled kids called Yancy Academy. Percy is a troubled kid. He is actually a Demi-God which is a half god half human thingy. His dad is the Greek god of oceans, Poseidon, and his mom works in a candy shop. His mom is currently married to a fat poker guy named Gabe Ugliano.
Percy doesn't know is dad is Poseidon. There are also monsters who want Percy dead.

The story begins in the middle of a school day when his Latin class is on a field trip to the Greek museum. Soon he is going to his apartment where his mom tells him they're going to the beach. When they get there Percy's best friend Grover (who turns out to be a satyr) comes out of nowhere and tells them to get out of there and go to a special summer camp where Percy will be safe from monsters. So as they are driving they get ambushed by a large cow man called a minotaur. The Minotaur initially destroy the car and turns Percy's mom into glowing light. Percy and his friend escape to the camp called camp Half-Blood where they learn about the master bolt and how the gods think Percy stole it. So Percy is sent on a quest to find out who stole the master bolt (and save his mom) and to bring it to mount Olympus before the gods all destroy each other. accompanieng him is his friend Grover and a daughter of Athena Annabeth. On the way he fights monsters and gets sidetracked and eventually get to the underworld where they confront hades and find out he isn't the bad guy. and eventually Percy finds the thief gets the master bolt and saves his mama.

Some concerns about this book is that a lot of the Greek allusions can be mildly confusing if someone doesn't have any background knowledge about Greek mythology. Also Percy is ADHD and can be hard to follow at times.Besides that the book is a great fast paced novel with a lot of mystery and suspense mixed in with Action. I think Rick Riordan is a great Teenage book writer and is really funny. He is probably the best author i know at creating complex and very likable characters. But i think that his second book series The Heroes of Olympus is drastically worse then the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.All in all The Lightning thief is a great book with good plot and very colorful characters. A