Percy Jackson is an unlucky, often dim-witted sixth grader who finds out that his shortcomings are the fault of his parentage -- he is the son of a mortal woman and a Greek god. He finds himself at a summer camp of other half-bloods, and goes on a quest like the heroes of old. The story is straightforward and overly simple, and the speech patterns are unnatural and forced (a trend that the audiobook version only made more pronounced). My biggest problem was with the logistics -- Ares, for example, has so many offspring at the camp that he must do nothing except impregnate mortal women. The big brush of standard bully traits is applied to so many characters it loses its appeal, and the gods seem like caricatures of themselves. I would have liked to see some variety or some kind of new take on an old tale, but none appeared.