Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan

My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

I absolutely loved Sea of Monsters, and in many ways enjoyed this book a lot more than The Lightning Thief. The pacing, the plot itself, along with all of the adventurous shit that Percy and his friends had to go through, as well as the continuous growth of the characters and their relationship to one another are all reasons why I loved this second book in the series. And that PLOT TWIST at the end…damn I did not see that coming.

 

First off: Tyson is without a doubt, hands-down the best Percy Jackson character of all time and needs to be protected at all costs. His love towards Rainbow the hippocampus was too pure for words and how he went looking for donuts in the middle of fucking nowhere was priceless and had laughing out loud. My heart was utterly BROKEN when after the CSS Birmingham went down, he was considered to be dead. I was about to go after Rick Riordan with a mental pitchfork, thinking that he had killed off the most pure and funny character in the entire series even before he had gone on an entire adventure. And let me tell you – and I’m not even kidding about this – I had literal tears in my eyes when he came back. And that speech, where he tells Percy that he prayed to Poseidon to help him and that Percy was his biggest blessing from his father since Poseidon had given him a brother was so heart-wrenchingly beautiful that I again had to shed a tear or two. Although I am really happy that he now gets to go underwater and learn how to make weapons and forge things in his internship, it definitely makes me incredibly sad to see him leave Percy. I hope Tyson will come back again in the later books and has the happiest of all happy endings he certainly deserves.

 

It was nice to also see Clarisse and Percy be slightly nicer to one another. My prediction will be that over the span of the next books she probably stops being such a bitch to him and might even join Percy and Annabeth on a quest. Those three hags from the Gray Sisters Taxi were also incredibly funny and I hope that they also make another appearance sometime in future books. Them all screaming at one another over their one eye and tooth had me in stitches.

 

Thalia’s return at the end also completely left me shook. I was so not expecting to ever see her as a character in the series. I’m extremely curious about whether she’ll end up being a friend or more of an rival to Percy, considering what either of their fates will most likely be.  

 

Speculations

I wonder whether that scar that Percy mentions at the beginning of the book having come from Luke might still play a role in later books? As we all know, scars can have important meaning and powers in some magical worlds (*cough* Harry Potter *cough*) so I’d be interested in knowing whether this one might also.

It also seems rather obvious that Percy still has his own fatal flaw to deal with. Annabeth mentions that each hero has to either find it and learn to control it or die. Perhaps we will see it revealed in the next book? I can imagine that it might have something to do with his temper or his reckless actions. Another thing it might be is how stupidly he consistently trusts random strangers who end up being monsters (e.g. Medusa, Circe).

Another speculation I have is whether Percy might go and join Tyson in the underwater court of Poseidon in the next book, since he has a magical dream about that at the end of Sea of Monsters. To be fair, it might have also just been a communicative dream and might not have anything to do with the future, but who knows? Speaking of Poseidon, there is definitely something big coming if the God of the Sea felt the need to warn Percy to brace himself for something. My thoughts are that this definitely has something to do with Thalia’s return.

Also, this book confirmed that the Three Fates cutting the thread at the beginning of the previous book had special significance which had not yet passed, which is what I had speculated in my previous review! I definitely wonder whose death they were predicting. My hope obviously is that both Percy and Thalia will end up alive at the end of the series but…we’ll see. 

Favorite Quotes

“Powdered donuts," Tyson said earnestly. "I will look for powdered donuts in the wilderness." He headed outside and started calling, "Here, donuts!”

“You weren't able to talk sense into him?"

“Well, we kind of tried to kill each other in a duel to the death."

“I see. You tried the diplomatic approach.”

“Families are messy. Immortal families are eternally messy. Sometimes the best we can do is to remind each other that we're related for better or for worse...and try to keep the maiming and killing to a minimum.”

“[My mom's] funny that way, celebrating special occasions with blue food. I think it's her way of saying anything is possible. Percy can pass seventh grade. Waffles can be blue. Little miracles like that.”