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The Sea of Monsters Book Review

The Sea of Monsters is a 2006 fantasy novel by Rick Riordan. It is a wildly entertaining genre story that trumps its predecessor in numerous ways.

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“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“

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Percy and his friends must rescue Grover from a dangerous Cyclops while they also have to heal a tree in the camp that is dying and leaving the place vulnerable to monsters. When it comes to the story itself, it’s much more engaging and charming than ‘The Lightning Thief’. I did like the first book quite a book, but this one appealed to me more due to better writing first and foremost.

Rick Riordan wrote his first major book with the first entry, so he struggled a bit with pacing and especially dialogue. The dialogue in this second novel is still overly playful and snarky, clearly targeting the younger teenage demographic. It could still be annoying, but thankfully there were also bright spots here, the prime one being the humor.

Surprisingly, the book took a highly humorous tone during the majority of its length and actually it worked more often than not. Making a fun and funny story out of the usually overly serious Greek myths was a clever idea that modernized this franchise in a good way.

The pacing is also much better, though it can be rushed at times and the final couple of passages felt surprisingly anti-climactic. But the final twist with the arrival a new, potentially powerful hero was a great cliffhanger hook for the next installment.

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Percy himself is just as snarky and just as childish as he was before, though he is a bit more likable this time around. His relationships with everybody else on the team were so well realized and the characterization overall is the highlight of this entry. His brotherly bond with Tyson, a good-natured Cyclops was the heart of this story. The power of both friendship and family is the main theme here and it’s once again a potent one.

Through Annabeth, Riordan explored pride and how problematic that can be for a hero. Her complicated past with Luke is put to the forefront here while Luke himself remains a pretty good villain. His speech about the decaying Western Civilization is overly familiar for sure, but at least the series does not paint its villains as evil just for the sake of being evil. The examination of the heroes’ quest and what it means was the deepest point of this novel.

The gods were surprisingly sidelined here and although I did love that quest for the Golden Fleece and the fights against the Cyclops were all incredibly entertaining, I did find the story a bit too small-scale in the context of Greek Mythology. But it’s still a very enjoyable and charming quest-like story that flies by how fun it is.

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One of the highlights of The Sea of Monsters is Clarisse. She is here less a one-note villainous brat and more a genuinely interesting, well developed character in her own right. The fact that Percy actually let her have her moment while his team was a distraction and a minor part of the quest was ingenious. I’ve rarely seen this approach in fantasy storytelling and it made this entry highly unique.