Once I got over the fact that my Latin teacher was a horse, we had a nice tour, though I was careful not to walk behind him.

Not mentioned: getting over his dead mother.

Seriously, author, why did you even “kill” her if he’s going to treat it like a disappearance anyway?

As they get a tour of the camp, everyone stops and stares at Percy, because he’s just that special, you guys.  He’s, like, super-duper special.

I get what this is, of course I do.  It’s a self-insert fantasy.  Perhaps it’s not the author’s self-insert fantasy, but it’s tailor made for young readers to picture themselves being Percy and feeling validated.  It’s so kids can go “Yup, I really am awesome, just no one noticed before.”  Or worse, characters will be blown out of proportion (like Gabe, like the Dursleys) so kids can imagine their own stepparents or guardians as being monsters, as they are wont to do.  (Come on, we all did it.  We all threatened to run away for not getting dessert.  We all thought our adults were horrible villains for making us do chores.)  That’s why these characters are so overblown and awful, but without any of the correlating consequences to go with it. 

*ahem*  Sorry, I think some of that was leftover from Ch 3.

My point is, I know why authors of middle-grade and younger books do this. 

But why do they have to be so obvious about it?

Percy and Chiron talk about Grover and about how he needs to prove courage and bring a half-blood safely to camp in order to get promoted.  Sadly, Percy won’t count, because Percy got himself to camp, mostly.  Also, because Sally met an “unfortunate fate” along the way.

Percy, that off-hand comment tugging any heart strings?  Nope?  You’re just going to let that fly by without a blink. 

Okay, then.  At least you feel bad for ditching Grover at the bus station.

Percy asks about the Underworld, and Chiron gets all freaky about it and says it exists, but don’t talk about it.  Because this book likes to telegraph its plot way ahead of time, I guess.  Percy continues to be really weirdly good at asking only the book-relevant questions, but not anything that would make sense.

You know, like “why the fuck do monsters keep attacking me?”

Percy gets introduced to the 12 cabins, one for each Olympian.  They pass by Ares’ cabin and Percy notes someone in particular.

The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALFBLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on me and gave me an evil sneer. She reminded me of Nancy Bobofit, though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long and stringy, and brown instead of red.

So.  Antagonist female.  Once again the book focuses on looks, noting that she’s fat and has stringy hair.  Nice, book, real nice.  At least she gets to be ‘tough,’ too, but that’s rather minor in context.

They reach cabin 11 and find Annabeth there and waiting.  She takes him into the cabin, which is stuffed with kids, and meets Luke.  Luke explains that Percy is ‘undetermined’ and thus gets stuck with all the other misfits in cabin 11, because Hermes is the god of travelers. 

Why stick them all in one cabin like that?  Why not just make an ‘undetermined’ cabin?  You can still make them feel like misfits if you give them a cabin with no personality, since all the other cabins were decorated to match their gods.

That’s because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek.

How…does that even…what…?

Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters.

Okay, author.  I put up with some of this, because of course kids like being validated, and it’s not the worst thing in the world to do that for them.  After all, if you’re told all day every day that your opinion on everything is wrong (even if it is) and that your feelings don’t matter because you’ll grow out of them, that would add up to a pretty shitty existence.

But this right here is completely uncalled for.  It’s hard enough getting kids to listen to teachers when the education system completely guts their every means of authority, and it’s even harder still to get people in general to trust medication.  But to hand a book to an ADHD kid and then tell him that his teacher, who is trying to help him, is actually trying to hurt him by shutting down his brain with drugs?

Not cool, author.  Not cool.

Annabeth finally tells Percy that he’s a half-blood, and I swear I can hear Chiron in the background going “aaaaw, I thought for sure we could keep this one in the dark for two days.  Way to ruin all our fun, Annabeth.”

Miss Big from before comes along, and her name is Clarisse.  She’s there to do nothing except be an antagonist.  Because all bullies are also stupid and blunt and ugly, so you can see them coming.  They’re very helpful that way, those bullies.

Clarisse says outright that she’s going to haze him, but Percy goes along with her anyway.  She takes him into the bathroom and literally just beats the shit out of him while all her friends stand around and laugh.  Why did you go in there, Percy?

When Clarisse tries to shove his head in the toilet bowl, water starts spurting out of all the toilets and knocking people around.  Now, we know that it’s really Percy doing this, but if you’d read the text, it makes it sound like this stuff is just happening around Percy.  He “felt a tug in the pit of [his] stomach” but that’s the only agency he has in this whole scene.  The rest of the action verbs are given over to the water and the plumbing.  It makes it sound less like Percy has control over water, and more like water is just a living entity that happened to take a liking to him and come to his defense. 

Which, admittedly, would be cool.  But that’s not how this book plays out, so in retrospect, it’s a bit of fail writing.