Sorry, Percy Jackson

Here’s a confession that isn’t going to be easy… Promise you won’t tell anybody? Right – I have never read any of the Percy Jackson series.

I know! I know! It’s terrible. It’s awful. It’s practically a crime in the book world! If I was saying this on tumblr I might actually have been hunted down and locked away, but, I’m afraid it’s true. Talk to me about camp-half blood, Greek mythology or funny dyslexic heroes and all you’ll be met with is a blank stare and a polite cough.

It’s not that I haven’t tried. Trust me – I have. I bought the book earlier this year and intended to have finished the series and be excitedly scribbling out fan-fiction by the end of June. I would finally be part of this manic Percy craze that had consumed the universe. I felt like reading this series would be my rite of passage into the book blogging world, I would be accepted into some kind of unspoken cult!

But, it just didn’t happen. I have picked up Percy Jackson a countless number of times, my determination growing more forceful every time – I would read this book. I would! But, each time, without fail, I would reach chapter four and lose all interest, my motivation vanishing like it was part of some clever magic trick. If this is frustrating for you, imagine how irritable it got me. I was trying so hard, so ridiculously hard, to read this book and make the world happy but I just couldn’t do it. It was just so… boring.

I could practically hear the pitch forks being sharpened as I wrote that word. Boring. I found Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief monotonously boring. So shoot me! Tear up my membership card and ban me from the metaphorical bookblogging club! It’s true! For a girl of my age Percy Jackson is boring.

My issue, I think, is that I never read Percy Jackson as a child. If I had read it aged 9 or 10 like everybody else then I know it would consumed my world in one large bite. But read it for the first time now, it just doesn’t do anything for me. It’s a children’s book. The writing style is meant for children. You can’t expect me to switch from my heart diet of teen fiction and angst to a simplistically written fantasy just like that! I can’t connect with the characters or the story because there just isn’t enough depth and substance for an older reader to work with. This sounds so pretentious, but it wasn’t Percy Jackson’s plotline that turned me so completely off, but the writing style simply wasn’t sophisticated enough for me.

I know a lot of Percy Jackson fans my age and older and they will defend the series with their life. They are completely unable to understand what’s stopping me from diving head-first into their world. They would happily read that first book over and over again forever if they had to, why shouldn’t I be able to do the same? But, for them, the first Percy Jackson book is a nostalgia thing. It holds meaning for them as a book that was so important to them growing up. They can read that first chapter and feel like the excited little kid again. For me, Percy Jackson holds no meaning or significance. It is just another children’s book that sadly I have long since outgrown.

‘Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone’ I think is a prime example of this. I can switch from ‘The Lord of the Flies’ to that faithful first book so easily you would think they were of the same genre. Harry Potter is familiar and warm for me. It reminds me of being 7 years old and yelling the word ‘muggle’ at anyone who crossed me. It brings me back to one of my first experiences of getting excited over a book or a series. However, I know that if I read that book now, it wouldn’t do anything for me, I probably wouldn’t enjoy it.

You don’t expect a teenager to shop in the children’s section usually. You don’t ever see a sixteen-year old girl walking out of Waterstones excitedly with the next ‘Goosebumps’ book in her hands. In fact, some would even ridicule me if I did. So why should you expect me to react any differently to Percy Jackson. I will not deny that it is well-written book with a spectacular plotline as long as you do not deny that it was not intended for my age range.

I’m sorry. I really am sorry. For writing this blog, for thinking these thoughts, for not forcing myself through Percy Jackson in the first place! I don’t mean to offend such a massive, passionate fanbase or ridicule your personal reading tastes – if you’re excited about Percy Jackson then that’s fantastic! But, Percy Jackson just isn’t for me. He wasn’t there when I was the book-curious 8 year old who needed him and he’s only now appeared that I am a teenager reader with no interest whatsoever. I’m going to stop pretending that I’m ever going to read the series. I’m going to put the book on my bookshelf and it probably won’t move for many, many years. This is just way that I feel. I’m sorry, Percy. I’m sorry.

Rainbow List of Must-Reads: Blue - We Were Liars

This is the Rainbow List of Must-Reads: Where I review a different one of my favourite books each week! Fifth on our list we have a blue book with a blue cover:

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

      Right. You have to promise me right now that if you happened to have read this wonderful, wonderful book that you won’t tell anyone how it ends? Okay? Right, let’s begin.

 ‘We Were Liars’ has the most magnificent and astonishing ending to a book that I have ever read. It blew my mind. After I’d finished it I closed the book, put it down in front of me and just stared at it for about ten minutes, quietly weeping. It’s that good.

            ‘We Were Liars’ is a book that everyone seems to be raving about. There are countless videos and reviews out there that will tell you almost the same thing about it and it’s ending that I just have. I was worried when I picked it up a few weeks ago from Waterstones that the hype may have ruined it, as it sometimes can. I read the blurb – it gave away nothing – and bought it anyway.

   

         Out of the set of books I bought that day, I read ‘We Were Liars’ first. I was excited to finally get in on this secret that the whole world seemed to be keeping. I sunk into that book like you sink your teeth into a large sandwich after a long day’s work and was soon eating it up at an alarming rate.

   

         I loved the characters. Particularly Gat – he had me at ‘strong coffee’. The book contains some absolutely gorgeous descriptions and personable details making you feel like you could have known these people all of your life.

           E. Lockhart successfully manages to tell a satisfying and captivating story whilst still hiding the mystery from the reader for the duration of the book. She ensnares you into her world of Beechwood Island and teases you with miniscule hints and details until you are absolutely gasping to know what’s going on. When the puzzle finally slides into place, you wonder how you never managed to work it out before.

  

          The only complaint I have heard about ‘We Were Liars’ is it’s interesting choice of writing style. I completely disagree. One of the reasons I fell in love with this book is because it sounds so effortlessly beautiful in my head. It is a graceful combination of prose and poetry that allows Lockhart to display her character’s thoughts and feeling and explore the themes of friendship, love and privilege in the clearest, most elegant way possible. Every sentence was a feast.

  

          Usually in these reviews I like to give you a basic idea of the book’s plotline. I’m not going to do that today. A large part of ‘We Were Liars’’ charm is in its mystery. I feel that if I ruined any part of that then I might accidentally tarnish the experience as a whole. I want you to experience ‘We Were Liars’ in the same way that I did – completely in the dark, without even a clue as to what to expect.

           It’s the kind of book that once you’ve finished reading (and once you’ve finished crying) you feel like you need to make someone else read it too. I realise now that I needn’t have worried about the book’s hype, ‘We Were Liars’ is a book that is immune to exaggerations. The only way it could ever be torn down from its pedestal is if its audience decided to revolt against it, spilling its secret everywhere they could. But where’s the fun in that?

  

          There were some very strong competitors for the blue spot on this list. ‘We Were Liars’ beat them all by a landslide. I have no more words for it today - only a stunned, astounded silence. Just read the damn book, okay?

You can find out more about E. Lockhart here!

You can read the other reviews in the Rainbow List of Must-Reads here: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green!