Rick Riordan’s second book in the Percy Jackson series, The Sea of Monsters, continues the story with Percy and his friends finding trouble with the tree protecting Camp Half Blood when they try to return. Realizing this, they try to get a quest, however Percy’s nemesis Clarisse gets the quest instead. Percy decides to sneak away from Camp Half Blood anyways with Annabeth and his half-brother Tyson. They end up travelling to the Sea of Monsters where they unite with Clarisse to fight the cyclops Polyphemus and rescue their friend Grover. They end up getting the golden fleece, which not only restores the tree, but also revives Thalia, a girl that had sacrificed herself for the tree.
Rick Riordan has a great style of writing throughout the story that is consistent with the rest of the series. The chapter names, as they always are in Riordan’s books, are very creative. The creativity by Riordan to bring in tons of different characters from Greek mythology, and seamlessly place them in the story is very impressive- the laestrygonians at the beginning along with cyclops throughout the story. Although I am not as big a fan of this book as I am of the first, this is still a solid book and moves. The story forwards with characters like Luke, Percy, and Annabeth getting a lot of development, and with the Percy and Annabeth dynamic being so cleverly written. I would give this book a 4 out of 5. It's not the best in the series but still very solid.