BOOK PICK + GIVEAWAY: Some Thoughts on The Son of Neptune

I will try to write the first part of this entry without any spoilers for The Son of Neptune.

When I first read the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, I read all five books in one week. It wasn’t because I was so hooked; I just felt I had to catch up with the rest of the world, especially with the release of The Lost Hero, and just recently, The Son of Neptune.

Reading a series that fast doesn’t allow a reader to become a fan right away. Don’t get me wrong, I love the series now, having read until The Son of Neptune. But upon a first reading, I looked at facts and events rather than characters and motives. It was only when I reached The Last Olympian, when the final battle and ultimate conflict was about to be faced, that I actually stopped and thought about Percy having grown up so much since first meeting him, Luke having become so desperate since my first impression of him, and Kronos having built a real physical presence around himself since his haunting shadow in The Lightning Thief. The flashbacks in that book also helped in growing emotionally close to the characters, especially to Luke, Thalia and Annabeth. I’m such a sucker for flashbacks, I really am.

It’s funny; just as in Harry Potter we find a huge chunk of the story is about Dumbledore, here we find that in Percy Jackson and the Olympians, much of the events had transpired because of Luke Castellan.

By the end of the series, I didn’t know whether or not to believe Luke was still a hero inside (though the series does angle it towards his redemption), but I was left wishing I had read a little more slowly and perhaps gotten to know him a little more.

Thankfully, with the Heroes of Olympus series, we don’t have to say good-bye to everyone we grew to love before. And to continue the story with fans of the series, I am giving away:

1. One hardbound copy of The Son of Neptune 
2. One hardbound copy of The Son of Neptune with a Rick Riordan signed Percy Jackson and the Olympians book plate
3. One hardbound copy of The Son of Neptune with a Rick Riordan signed Heroes of Olympus book plate 
   

Simply e-mail your full name, and contact number to lucyscontests@fullybookedonline.com, with the subject I CAN'T WAIT TO READ SON OF NEPTUNE! You have until 12:00 nn on Monday, October 17, 2011 to e-mail your entries, and the winners will be chosen via Random.org. Only one entry per person will be counted. :-)

This giveaway is open to Metro Manila, Philippines residents only, as all winning books and book plates will be claimed at the Fully Booked Bonifacio High Street branch. Entries with incomplete or wrong information indicated will not be qualified for the contest, and requests for pick up in other branches will not be entertained. Please be patient with me as this is one of my first giveaways in a long time, and I would like to see how it goes before opening more giveaways to other areas there are Fully Booked branches in!  Hope you guys understand!!

Now for the real reason for this entry: some thoughts on The Son of Neptune. (Spoilers after this cut, so don't read the rest if you haven't finished the book!)

Book Pick: The Devil's Graveyard

The Devil’s Graveyard is the third book from Anonymous, the first two books being “The Book With No Name” and “The Eye of the Moon”. This new book talks about the new gripping and terrifying adventures of the Bourbon Kid, an infamous serial killer.

The Devil’s Graveyard is a cursed place in the desert where Hotel Pasadena can be found. Impersonators of dead stars such as Judy Garland, James Brown, Kurt Cobain and more, all swarm to the hotel to compete for the final of the “Back from The Dead” singing contest. Aside from the million dollar prize at stake, there is more to that than what meets the eye. In a bizarre turn of events, the finalists are killed off one by one. If that’s not strange enough, throw in some flesh-eating zombies and the gates of hell threatening to open up... to make this tale more horrific than it already is.

I haven’t read the first two books yet, but I find this one much too graphic for my taste. There’s just too much blood, gore and profanity splattered all over the pages! For sure my parents will not approve of this kind of literature. However, being the book maven that I am, and not wanting to start a book without even finishing it, I decided to keep pushing on...and you know what? Morbid stuff aside, I’m glad I did.

The American Idol-like setting with the action-packed twists and turns, make this novel quite an engaging read. The part I like most is seeing The Bourbon Kid shed off a bit of his mad killer exterior and reveal a bit of his soft side. This book is not for the faint of heart but if you’re game, then you’re in for one heck of a ride.

Book Pick: Dreamland

All her life, Caitlin was overshadowed by her older sister Cass. Cass has the perfect life: student council president, star soccer player, and on her way to Yale for college. But when Caitlin wakes up on her 16th birthday, she finds out that her sister left home without telling anyone. As the family copes with the space left by Cass, Caitlin still feels her shadow. Longing to be different and to do something her own, she falls in love with Rogerson, a mysterious older boy. On their first date, she learns two secrets about him: that Rogerson is a drug dealer, and that his father hits him. Those revelations fold her into his world. And despite his problems, Caitlin is happy with who she is: “Now, with him, I felt finally like I was making my own choices, living wide awake after being in a dreamworld so long.” Life takes on the routine of hanging out with his friends, joining him on his “errands”, smoking and doing drugs. Soon, Rogerson becomes possessive and jealous, and Caitlin starts losing control of her life. Then Rogerson becomes abusive. Caitlin feels helpless: “But now I felt like I was drifting, sucked down by undertow, and too far out to swim back to the shore.” Constantly stoned, she hides her bruises and looks forward to the good days – days when Rogerson won’t hit her. She sinks, stuck in a different kind of dreamland, which she finds “preferable” to facing the reality of her problems. As she spirals toward her breaking point, she feels herself being shaken awake, shaken back into reality. But breaking the surface will mean leaving Rogerson and coming to terms with herself.



“Dreamland.” The title makes this sound a like light read, but it’s a heavy story. When Caitlin was drowning under the weight of her problems, I could understand her helplessness, her shame, her desire to keep her problems secret. But I was a bit upset at Caitlin because she didn’t have to be in that situation in the first place. There were lots of alarm bells ringing as her relationship took off, but she didn’t pay attention. Her desire to differentiate herself from her sister was so strong that it overpowered all other reasoning. Caitlin wasn’t particularly troubled, but she got sucked in nonetheless.



Sarah Dessen vividly describes what it feels like to lose control over your life, to feel attached to the source of your problems, to feel helpless and wanting help, but never being able to say your problems out loud. She sends a strong message to readers about drugs and abusive relationships. It’s dark and gritty, and if you’re smart enough to know what’s good for you, you’ll avoid Caitlin’s dreamland at all costs.

Book Pick: The Bell Jar

The Bell Jar is the semi-autobiographical novel of Sylvia Plath whose main author is Esther Greenwood, a young, talented and driven writer who was granted a scholarship and an editorial stint in a ladies magazine one summer in NYC. To the outside world, Esther is proper, brilliant, put-together. But the summer in NYC was the start of her descent to madness. Esther feels detached, disinterested and unable to have the slightest enjoyment to things that any nineteen year old away in the big city would normally feel. And yet she wakes up each day, putting up with conversations she didn’t want to participate in, events she couldn’t care less to go to and friendships she was starting not to care about. After her stint in NYC she goes back to her home in a suburb of Boston to spend the rest of her summer and here she nurses her depression like a strong drink. The first thing to go was sleep, then her ability to write, her interest in reading and next her inability to hold a thought …”Everytime I tried to concentrate, my mind glided off, like a skater, into a large empty space, and pirouetted there, absently.” Through visits to her psychiatrist, shock therapy and a subsequent stay in an asylum, Esther struggles to get out of the bell jar that is constantly above her head, ready to descend and engulf her.

The Bell Jar can be sad if you want to just dwell on Esther’s depression. But more than that, Esther is hopeful as she waits and tries to get better and to be her old self again and I think aside from the serious tones of the novel, this is what it is really about. At a time when it was taboo to talk about depression and other feminist ideals, I find Sylvia Plath very brave and ahead of her time with the way she describes Esther and her thought processes. You can feel her brilliance shine through. 5 stars!