A review by reeniecrystal
Percy Jackson's Greek Gods by Rick Riordan
4.0
TL;DR - It's a Percy Jackson book, you know exactly what you're getting in terms of comedic narrative style, but be prepared for some jarringly uncomfortable interruptions to that due to the nature of Greek mythology itself. Maybe don't read if you're triggered or easily upset by things like assault or bad people getting away with doing bad things, or just want to continue seeing the PJO universe as largely innocent and fun.
Extended:
I'm sure that when he got the idea for this book, Mr. Riordan was thinking something similar to what we were all thinking when we first heard about it:
"Wait a second, I'm already famous for writing children's books based on Greek mythology... why don't I just write my own recollection of the Greek mythology stories? It'll be so easy, I'd only have to do like half the work since the stories themselves are already done, I'll just use my famous sense of humor to style them up! WOO HOO! Alright, time for children's fantasy comedy genius Rick to write another book!"
And then at some point, while he was already too far in the writing process to turn back, he realized something...
"... Oh shit, I forgot about all the rape!!"
Yes, yes he goes there. And you can tell that he really, really didn't want to, because he avoids doing so as often as he can conceivably get away with, and when he absolutely can't because the myth just relies that heavily on it (the ancient Greeks were fucked up, man), the narration is incredibly awkward, tense, and peppered with like a million apologies and PSA-style reminders that sexual assault is not okay and never the victim's fault and you should always, always, always tell a safe grown up if it ever happens to you, okay kids?! Look, it's not his fault, it was a different time!!!!!
Basically Rick the whole time like:
And that's all well and good, but the contrastingly pessimistic and depressing reality of when it does happen tends to put a damper on the otherwise silly, dry humored, self-aware tone that the rest of the book takes. It is the typical PJO tone, except occasionally you're forced to endure something that never would have happened in the PJO books. It's like if you were watching the Fairly Odd Parents, and then suddenly, Cosmo violently drowns someone's child in a lake because that's just what fairies do in real life fae mythology, so Timmy takes an extended moment to seriously tell us that drowning people is bad before moving on with the rest of the silly show.
And I suppose it's not the end of the world because 99% of people reading a Riordan book in the first place already knows how the mythology goes so none of this will be a surprise for them, but it does sort of create an underlying sense of internal inconsistency, especially when it comes to characters like Poseidon, Percy's dad, who are otherwise portrayed as relatively nice people. So like, is Percy just okay with knowing his dad is a rapist, did Poseidon apologize for it once the culture said that behavior wasn't acceptable anymore, or...? The gods in the regular books aren't exactly upstanding individuals, but even this is a bit much to know when we're otherwise supposed to side with them in the cosmic conflicts that ravage this universe. It kind of makes the whole idea of the Percy Jackson universe less fun and more nightmarish and depressingly dystopian (which, admittedly, it can already come across as sometimes).
I guess that this book is probably best read the same way that one might watch "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia": Accepting from the start that these are all terrible people going through largely amoral adventures so that you set your expectations low. One might argue that a children's book shouldn't be taking this mindset, but then one would have to question why we push Greek mythology so hard on children at all if that's the case.
Extended:
I'm sure that when he got the idea for this book, Mr. Riordan was thinking something similar to what we were all thinking when we first heard about it:
"Wait a second, I'm already famous for writing children's books based on Greek mythology... why don't I just write my own recollection of the Greek mythology stories? It'll be so easy, I'd only have to do like half the work since the stories themselves are already done, I'll just use my famous sense of humor to style them up! WOO HOO! Alright, time for children's fantasy comedy genius Rick to write another book!"
And then at some point, while he was already too far in the writing process to turn back, he realized something...
"... Oh shit, I forgot about all the rape!!"
Yes, yes he goes there. And you can tell that he really, really didn't want to, because he avoids doing so as often as he can conceivably get away with, and when he absolutely can't because the myth just relies that heavily on it (the ancient Greeks were fucked up, man), the narration is incredibly awkward, tense, and peppered with like a million apologies and PSA-style reminders that sexual assault is not okay and never the victim's fault and you should always, always, always tell a safe grown up if it ever happens to you, okay kids?! Look, it's not his fault, it was a different time!!!!!
Basically Rick the whole time like:
And that's all well and good, but the contrastingly pessimistic and depressing reality of when it does happen tends to put a damper on the otherwise silly, dry humored, self-aware tone that the rest of the book takes. It is the typical PJO tone, except occasionally you're forced to endure something that never would have happened in the PJO books. It's like if you were watching the Fairly Odd Parents, and then suddenly, Cosmo violently drowns someone's child in a lake because that's just what fairies do in real life fae mythology, so Timmy takes an extended moment to seriously tell us that drowning people is bad before moving on with the rest of the silly show.
And I suppose it's not the end of the world because 99% of people reading a Riordan book in the first place already knows how the mythology goes so none of this will be a surprise for them, but it does sort of create an underlying sense of internal inconsistency, especially when it comes to characters like Poseidon, Percy's dad, who are otherwise portrayed as relatively nice people. So like, is Percy just okay with knowing his dad is a rapist, did Poseidon apologize for it once the culture said that behavior wasn't acceptable anymore, or...? The gods in the regular books aren't exactly upstanding individuals, but even this is a bit much to know when we're otherwise supposed to side with them in the cosmic conflicts that ravage this universe. It kind of makes the whole idea of the Percy Jackson universe less fun and more nightmarish and depressingly dystopian (which, admittedly, it can already come across as sometimes).
I guess that this book is probably best read the same way that one might watch "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia": Accepting from the start that these are all terrible people going through largely amoral adventures so that you set your expectations low. One might argue that a children's book shouldn't be taking this mindset, but then one would have to question why we push Greek mythology so hard on children at all if that's the case.