Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Sea of Monsters is Rick Riordan’s second book in the Percy Jackson universe. It follows 13 year old Perseus Jackson journeying through the mythical sea of monsters to save his satyr friend, Grover Underwood, from a cyclops. Percy must face multiple challenges to make it to Grover before the cyclops gets too hungry.

Sea of Monsters gets a lot of hate, but I think it’s one of the best in the series. While this book is the shortest in the series, it covers so many Greek myths such as Circe and cyclopes. It also covers many of the character’s fears of loneliness, failure, etc. For a children’s book, Sea of Monsters is very deep, which may be why some people don’t like it as much.

My favorite part of this book is probably the very beginning when Percy is still at school. There are so many little details that help evolve his character, such as the photo he carries of Annabeth Chase in his books. While Percy doesn’t know at the time, he ends up falling in love with Annabeth, which makes this tiny detail so adorable.

There is also a scene where Percy treats his cyclops half-brother, Tyson, poorly. He would often mention how ugly and rugged Tyson was and how he wished they weren’t half-brothers. Percy then notices that the bullies at school and Camp Half-Blood treat him similarly, so he almost immediately changes his ways. Later in the book, something happens to Tyson and Percy is so overcome with grief that he wished he could drown. This truly demonstrates how far Percy had come in the span of a single book.

In summary, Sea of Monsters is an incredible Rick Riordan book. I would highly recommend it to all readers, especially young ones. It will be a novel that you will not regret reading.