The Mark of Athena and some General Percy Jackson Related Chatter...

Before we start, let me just say that I think I'd forgotten how much Percy Jackson grows up between The Sea of Monsters and The Mark of Athena. In the first he's about thirteen, and in the second... I don't even know anymore. Older than sixteen definitely. 

So what I did this week was I tried to watch the second Percy Jackson film (The Sea of Monsters) while reading the third book in the Heroes of Olympus series, The Mark of Athena. If you're tempted to try it, really really don't. 

 

First let me talk about The Mark of Athena. I enjoyed the first Percy Jackson series, but honestly I'm enjoying the second a hell of a lot more. I think the first series reads as if it's for a lot younger kids than this series does and so I find this one easier reading as I feel less like I'm being talked down to. 

The basic idea of this series is pretty much that another (or pretty much the ultimate) godly bad guy (or girl... giving away nothing here!) is out to destroy the world and it's up to Percy and co to save it, again. This time there's an added twist though, which I won't talk about too much in case you want to read the series from the beginning, but basically there's a whole load of other characters involved in the whole world saving thing, including a guy called Jason, who is very Percy Jacksonesque...

If you've read any of the Percy Jackson books before we probably don't have to talk too much about what happens in this book. Some kids go on a quest. Various mythological figures appear, which is always fun because if you're like me you spend a good few minutes trying to remember who they are and why you know their name and what happened to them, and there's lots of action and cryptic clues and people having to face their worst nightmares. All very gripping stuff, I have to say, and The Mark of Athena was probably my favourite so far for how all the characters storylines from both this series and the last are coming together in unexpected ways. 

So that's the good stuff over. Now, The Sea of Monsters. I should have been apprehensive because my 13 year old brother lent me the movie and told me that it wasn't as good as either the book, or the first movie. I thought he was exaggerating, but he really wasn't. Honestly we stopped watching after about 20 mins, we just couldn't handle it anymore. 

This will be a list of ranting. Firstly WHAT THE HELL, CHARLIE?!!! I thought, after seeing the awesomeness that was The Perks of Being a Wallflower and discovering that Logan Lerman can really act, that this film was bound to be better than the first Percy Jackson film, because why go backwards, right? But no. Never have I seen a brilliant actor so fully convince me that he can't act at all. Gah. 

Secondly (and you'll have to excuse my language, I don't often swear on this blog - reality is a different kettle of fish - but this calls for it) what the fuck is up with them sexing up all the female characters? That's entirely not the point of them. The thing I like most about the girls in Percy Jackson is that the focus is mostly on their personalities and how cool/annoying/clever/whatever they are, but when I saw the actress playing Clarisse I thought I was actually going to cry. As far as I can remember, her physical appearance isn't mentioned that much, but never ever did I imagine the girl who flushes people's heads down the toilet looking like this: 

It's like they were afraid to put a girl in this movie who wasn't perfectly groomed, pretty good looking and had a perfect figure. It made me seriously angry and was pretty much the reason we stopped watching in the end. 

I felt like they were trying to pull the same kind of attention for The Sea of Monsters as The Hunger Games did, and that was just never going to happen. I'm disappointed because I liked the first film and I hoped this would be good, and frankly if they bother making a third one I'll be warning everyone against wasting their time and money. 

Apparently this film made me angry.

Things Which Have Been Happening Lately

Some of you will know about the recurring awful thing that's been going on in our family for the past couple of years, about which I am generally very mysterious and fairly depressed. We (by which I mean me) have dealt pretty well with the bulk of it, primarily because it involves a family member and so only really involves us indirectly, however about a year ago we had an unexpected event happen in connection with it and it left me feeling pretty powerless and scared, and in the last week we've had a totally unexpected recurrence of the same event which has left me a bit dazed. We're still waiting for the outcome of what's happened, which is always the worst bit because I spend my time convincing myself that the worse possible scenarios will definitely happen and generally stressing myself out more than I need to. Hopefully I've learned how to deal with it enough from the past two years to not have to absent myself from blogging this time, but if I'm more vague and all-over-the-place than normal then I hope you'll forgive me! Also for how totally cryptic I'm being!

So anyway, this is a really a reorientation post. I've been struggling with a review of MaddAddam for a few days so I'm taking a break from it to give you a little bullet pointed sort of post about what's going on around here! Firstly, for those who are interested, I'm now 17 weeks pregnant and in the annoying stage of being too fat for my normal clothes but too thin for maternity clothes, meaning I'm continually pulling my trousers up, which isn't the best look for work, but never mind! I heard the baby's heartbeat for the first time last week, which was pretty lovely :-) Unfortunately EVERYTHING (for which read this and this) that I'd really like to do this year is either happening just before or just after I'm due to give birth, but never mind!

Books wise, I finished MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood this week, as well as The Mark of Athena, the third in the second series of Percy Jackson books by Rick Riordan, and The Forgotten Affairs of Youth by Alexander McCall Smith. The latter two I probably won't review, because, well, Percy Jackson is Percy Jackson, really. They're very entertaining books, but there's not a huge amount that's new to say about them, and the Alexander McCall Smith is one in the Sunday Morning Philosophy Club series about Isabel Dalhousie, which I really enjoy and find mildly hilarious but again there's not a huge amount to say except they always make me want to go to Edinburgh. Again, probably something for next year! 

I've just remembered I'm also meant to be reading Macbeth before the end of the month for The Classics Club Twelve Months of Classic Literature Challenge I decided to participate in at the end of last year. I should probably get on that...

I also signed up for another Coursera course. After the epic failure that was me signing up for Modern and Contemporary American Poetry AND Comic Books and Graphic Novels, both of which had heavy workloads and quite a bit of reading AT THE SAME TIME as going back to work and then finding out I was pregnant again (so basically just a bad idea), I decided to sign up for another course which probably has waaaaaaayyy too much of a workload for the time I actually have available, but it looks really fun and has a cool reading list and as a bonus I'm pretty sure Hanna is doing it too. Because we have to do everything together now, I blame the Ninja Book Swap. So yes, this is the course and I'm super excited about it!

Speaking of the Ninja Book Swap, sign up info for the first ever Valentine's edition can be found here. Basic premise (for those who don't know) is that you sign up, are given a swappee, make them a nice parcel of a book or two from their wishlist (which don't have to be new, just in nice condition), a little gift and a card telling them who you are and then post it. Meanwhile somebody else does the same for you and it's just generally ridiculously fun, so if you haven't signed up you should and if you can't take part for whatever reason you should still definitely tell all your friends about it :-) Oh, and you should follow us on twitter for all the updates! @NinjaBookSwap

Finally, if you want to sponsor me for the reading I did for Great Ormond Street Hospital back in December (final page count is still to be determined, but I read A Tale of Two Cities plus at least one other book and some bits and pieces, so it's a fair amount!) it would be hugely appreciated and you can do so here.

And that's pretty much my life in a nutshell. I feel like somebody should be doing a drumroll....