Annabeth finishes giving Percy the tour of the place, then says she has to go off to training and Percy should go see the Oracle.  No, of course she doesn’t explain what that is.

I stared into the lake, wishing somebody would give me a straight answer for once.

You and me both, buddy.

Then we get a rundown on what ‘undetermined’ means, and we find out Percy’s dad has to claim him before he can move to another cabin.  We we’ll get plenty of answer on that, but not on the Oracle?  This wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t clearly for the sake of pacing the plot.  If it was, as some people suggested, to mimic old myths where things could be cleared up with some open communication, then why aren’t we getting straight talk on totally random stuff?  Instead, it’s always very clearly book-related, designed to keep the pace moving along at a set rate, regardless of what anyone actually is or would say in these situations.

If you’re a child of Aphrodite or Demeter, you’re probably not a real powerful force.

Because they do girl things and as we all know, girl things stupid.

Look, it’s well and good to have a book where girls kick ass.  But if they have to be ‘good’ by taking on traditionally masculine roles, then that’s still saying ‘femininity’ is still inferior, just these few girls have managed to rise above it.  It’s saying that some parts of the human experience, the parts usually associated with females, are inherently stupid.  So you can be a ‘strong’ girl, but heaven forbid you be emotional, or focus on cooperation over competition.  

Also, Demeter?  She who is basically Mother Nature and has power over the seasons?  You call that ‘not a real powerful force’?  She may not have a sword, but good luck surviving that blizzard with your fancy-shmancy shield. 

Also, Aphrodite?  You’re telling me that love and desire aren’t powerful forces? I’d like to counter that with ALL OF FUCKING HUMANITY SINCE EVER.

Aphrodite is one of a few characters in the Odyssey whose actions are a major contributing cause of the Trojan War: she offers Helen of Troy to Paris, and as the goddess of desire, she is responsible for Paris becoming so inflamed with desire for Helen at first sight that he is moved to abduct her.

Remember that?  CAUSED A FUCKING WAR.  So, yeah.

Annabeth continues to explain that some kids stay there year round because they just keep getting attacked, while the girly-erm, I mean, less powerful ones can go about their school lives unmolested.

Most of the time, they’ll ignore us until we’re old enough to cause trouble—about ten or eleven years old,

Man, these monsters sure are polite aren’t they?

Percy and Annabeth get around to talking about the summer solcstice and whatever is going on then, though they both have no clue what’s up with that.  Annabeth knows that something is wrong in Olympus because the weather is weird and the satyrs keep talking about something getting stolen.  Annabeth wanted to work with Percy on it, because she really, really wants a quest.

Percy goes back to his cabin, where Luke is nice and supportive to him.  He tells Percy that there’s a prophesy about Annabeth that says she’ll go on a quest with someone from camp, so Chiron won’t give her a quest until then, which is why Annabeth is so eager to jump on Percy.  He’s new, maybe he’ll be the one to finally get her out of the valley and off to some adventuring. 

Then it’s time for dinner, so we get more descriptions of the whole group gathered at the pavilion.  They also go through the ritual of burning a portion of their food as an offering to the gods. 

“That’s right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your silly campfire. Go on.”

Ah, Mr. D, you the delight of my reading time.

And then they do other random summer camp activities and go to bed. 

Okay, so, there’s been stuff in this book that I liked.  Really, there has.  But it goes uncommented and summarized, because there’s not really been anything that stands out as being awesome.  It’s just been “oh, yeah, and that didn’t annoy me.”  So this isn’t turning out much like Animorphs after all, because there’s not much here for me to squee about next to the complaining.  I wish I could convey how…not annoying the not annoying parts are, but that’s kind of hard, oddly enough.  So the end result is the impression that I hate these books, when I really don’t.  There’s annoying stuff, yes, and a few stand-out bits of infuriating, but on the whole, it’s okay.  It’s strange, because I remember really liking these books the first time I read them, even though I don’t remember much of the plot.  Maybe the parts I liked best are later?