100 Books: Books 4, 5, & 6- Percy Jackson & "The Compound"
So since I've recently gone through three books, I've decided to combine them into one post. Two of the three are part of a series involving Greek mythology, and the other is yet more dystopian literature. I had a fun time reading all three of them, which was awesome.
Book 4 was the third in the "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series, The Titan's Curse, and book 5 was the following entry in the series, The Battle of the Labyrinth. I have a long history with the series. I read the first one ages ago, did not recognize it for the awesomeness it is, and didn't look for the rest of the series. Then my brother got into them and read them all. Then the movie came out, and I took my brother to see it for his birthday, because it had a cool trailer and I knew he'd like it. (Since he turned twelve I've been taking him to movies, both for his birthday and just whenever we both really want to see something. The first thing we saw together was the last Indiana Jones movie, LOL.) Anyway, I really liked the movie and the lead actor was really cute and the entire experience piqued my interest in the series again. Then my family went to a museum and they had a whole Greek art exhibit and the movie was kind of tied into it. They were selling the series at the gift shop, I bought a copy of the first one, and read the whole thing that afternoon. As you can tell, I'm still in the process of reading them all, but I only have one to go! Yay.
Anyway. The series is about the eponymous protagonist, Percy, and his various adventures as a demigod. The whole series is centered around the idea of Greek mythology being real and half-blood children of the many Greek gods risking their lives to become heroes. Percy's kind of an ass at times, but I like my protagonists imperfect. They're really fun books, and the mythology is woven in so skilfully that it's easy to imagine the world operating on the whims of immortal beings. They're fast-paced but very cohesive, and the characters practically leap around on the pages killing monsters; it's all very energetic. I definitely recommend them. (I recommend the movie, too, but it diverges a lot from the books. Maybe I only liked it so much because I didn't care about the book-canon.)
And onto book 6! Entitled The Compound, I literally only finished it ten minutes ago. I wasn't so impressed with The Compound as I was with Percy and company. Book 6 tells of a rich family who flee to an extensive bomb shelter called, (what else) the Compund, to escape the fallout after a nuclear attack. They live there for six years in isolation. The shelter is equipped for fifteen years of survival, fitted with all sorts of fancy things, but within, the family ceases to be family and on and on.
I liked it overall, but there were definitely several places where it got a little choppy and odd. Even now that I've finished, there's a couple loose threads of plot points that I didn't understand. Characters' motivations really were unclear at many points; I still don't understand the reasoning for a lot of things. But most of it is a fun, suspenseful ride, even though I totally called the twist ending in like the second chapter. Most of the time the narrator/protagonist Eli was just a whiny little bitch, though, and I wanted to hit him constantly. Like, he had this whole thing about people touching him/him touching people that was never really explained properly and as a result it was just weird and I wanted to smack him around even more.
There's really not much to say about it because the twist ending is pretty much the whole thing, although some parts of it are pretty sick and twisted. I could really imagine the actual Compound well in my mind, and I definitely got the feeling of total isolation and hopelessness and misery from the narration. (Usually I don't like the first person, because I prefer occasional removal from the main character.) I mean, it's not bad, but it could have been tightened up and fixed in places, y'know? It was engaging enough for me to finish it in a day.
And now, on to typing up the first entry of my DITFT challenge! I am super-excited and I have a week without school to play. And also, do my huge amount of homework. BOO.
Also I need a new mood theme. I'm considering running back to my mini-MCR one. I liked my Repo one, but there were too many repetitions and I got bored of it. :(
~June
Book 4 was the third in the "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series, The Titan's Curse, and book 5 was the following entry in the series, The Battle of the Labyrinth. I have a long history with the series. I read the first one ages ago, did not recognize it for the awesomeness it is, and didn't look for the rest of the series. Then my brother got into them and read them all. Then the movie came out, and I took my brother to see it for his birthday, because it had a cool trailer and I knew he'd like it. (Since he turned twelve I've been taking him to movies, both for his birthday and just whenever we both really want to see something. The first thing we saw together was the last Indiana Jones movie, LOL.) Anyway, I really liked the movie and the lead actor was really cute and the entire experience piqued my interest in the series again. Then my family went to a museum and they had a whole Greek art exhibit and the movie was kind of tied into it. They were selling the series at the gift shop, I bought a copy of the first one, and read the whole thing that afternoon. As you can tell, I'm still in the process of reading them all, but I only have one to go! Yay.
Anyway. The series is about the eponymous protagonist, Percy, and his various adventures as a demigod. The whole series is centered around the idea of Greek mythology being real and half-blood children of the many Greek gods risking their lives to become heroes. Percy's kind of an ass at times, but I like my protagonists imperfect. They're really fun books, and the mythology is woven in so skilfully that it's easy to imagine the world operating on the whims of immortal beings. They're fast-paced but very cohesive, and the characters practically leap around on the pages killing monsters; it's all very energetic. I definitely recommend them. (I recommend the movie, too, but it diverges a lot from the books. Maybe I only liked it so much because I didn't care about the book-canon.)
And onto book 6! Entitled The Compound, I literally only finished it ten minutes ago. I wasn't so impressed with The Compound as I was with Percy and company. Book 6 tells of a rich family who flee to an extensive bomb shelter called, (what else) the Compund, to escape the fallout after a nuclear attack. They live there for six years in isolation. The shelter is equipped for fifteen years of survival, fitted with all sorts of fancy things, but within, the family ceases to be family and on and on.
I liked it overall, but there were definitely several places where it got a little choppy and odd. Even now that I've finished, there's a couple loose threads of plot points that I didn't understand. Characters' motivations really were unclear at many points; I still don't understand the reasoning for a lot of things. But most of it is a fun, suspenseful ride, even though I totally called the twist ending in like the second chapter. Most of the time the narrator/protagonist Eli was just a whiny little bitch, though, and I wanted to hit him constantly. Like, he had this whole thing about people touching him/him touching people that was never really explained properly and as a result it was just weird and I wanted to smack him around even more.
There's really not much to say about it because the twist ending is pretty much the whole thing, although some parts of it are pretty sick and twisted. I could really imagine the actual Compound well in my mind, and I definitely got the feeling of total isolation and hopelessness and misery from the narration. (Usually I don't like the first person, because I prefer occasional removal from the main character.) I mean, it's not bad, but it could have been tightened up and fixed in places, y'know? It was engaging enough for me to finish it in a day.
And now, on to typing up the first entry of my DITFT challenge! I am super-excited and I have a week without school to play. And also, do my huge amount of homework. BOO.
Also I need a new mood theme. I'm considering running back to my mini-MCR one. I liked my Repo one, but there were too many repetitions and I got bored of it. :(
~June