Percy Jackson's Greek Gods by Rick Riordan

TL;DR PERCY'S NARRATION IS BACK, THANK THE GODS

(finished 10/2/15)

I talked my grandmother into buying this book for me back in, like, February, made it most of the way through the book, and then let it sit until October. I am a horrible PJO fan. (My copy also has a terrible "Target exclusive 20% off" sticker on the dust jacket. If you needed any more proof.)

Anyway, because my TL;DR for once is pretty useless, Percy Jackson's Greek Gods is Percy narrating a bunch of different Greek mythology stories. Like what they teach in 6th grade history, but better, because it's Percy. All that sass that people say they miss from the Heroes of Olympus? It's back!

Honestly, there are a bunch of different stories included in this, so I'm not going to tackle them individually. The stories go in a vaguely chronological order (though I think some overlap, so it gets a little convoluted by the end). My very limited experience with Greek mythology before Percy Jackson was pretty boring, so let me tell you, this would've been amazing to have back in middle school.

(I said 6th grade history, since I know we learned about ancient Greece (and Rome and China), but for the life of me I can't remember if we actually touched on any mythology. Which is stupid, since that's a big part of their culture, but whatever. I went to public school.)

The book covers a lot of Greek mythology, and I've learned a ton, even more than I thought I learned from the PJO books. Schools should incorporate these books into their world history classes if they cover Greek mythology. I can't think of a better way to get kids' attention than disguising actually learning something with Percy's constant sass.

There are also pictures, too, which is really nice. The book is the size of a coffee table atlas, which is really unwieldy, but it didn't seem like it took forever to read. I actually think I got through a page in this book faster than I did with These Broken Stars, but that might also be because the text wasn't as densely printed. Percy's comments also definitely made it really engaging. The only reason it took me so long to finish is because I buried it in my room for half a year under all the stuff I've brought home from conventions and haven't put away yet.

There's also Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes, which I got the chance to flip through when I spent the night at my friend's house a while back. (Which was also the reason I finally sat down and finished Greek Gods.) I'm hoping to get a copy of Greek Heroes eventually, most likely after the new year when my "Fall releases to buy" list finally ends and I finish reading all of them.

I feel like I didn't establish much in this review. But do I really need to? C'mon, it's Percy Jackson and it's educational. You don't need any more than that. I literally could not have asked for anything better than this.