Percy Jackson's Greek Gods by Rick Riordan I Review

Title: Percy Jackson's Greek Gods
Author: Rick Riordan
Illustrator: John Rocco
Genre: Mythology
My Star Rating: ★★★★☆

Blurb: 
So begins Percy Jackson's Greek Gods, in which the son of Poseidon adds his own magic--and sarcastic asides--to the classics. He explains how the world was created, then gives readers his personal take on a who's who of ancients, from Apollo to Zeus. Percy does not hold back. "If you like horror shows, blood baths, lying, stealing, backstabbing, and cannibalism, then read on, because it definitely was a Golden Age for all that."

The books begins with the ancient Greek beleif of how the Earth was created, then moves onto the titans and how the olympians were born and how they defeated their father, Kronos. Percy then gives the twelve main olympains (and a few extras: Hades, Persephone and Hestia) a chapter each in which Percy tells us about the God's early days then some of their most well known adventures, including those relevent to the happenings of PJO and HOO books. Although, effective this format could be confusing at times as it wasn't in chronological order and it was never clear how far apart these events were occuring, especially with all the different human kings and queens involved.

The stories were all accurate to the mythology, although Percy tells them in the way that makes the most sense to him in some cases he also provides alternative versions of the stories. The mythology is indeed accurate but in order to keep the book interesting Riordan did use poetic licence, adding modern comparisons, jokes etc. to these old timey stories. 

The illustrations were amazing so I'm very glad I spent the extra money on the fancy American addition, as the UK cover was much less impressive and I don't think it had Jon Rocco's pictures.

I liked that Percy (the narrator) showed the bad side of the Gods, that they made rash desisons, were hypocritical and in many cases raped people (which he made very clear, was not okay). There were some refrences to PJO and HOO but I would have liked to see more, I saw plenty of oppurtunites for refrences and at some points I wanted confirmation that the creature/weapon Percy was telling us about was the same one i recignised from his adventures. I suppose Rick Riordan was trying to avoid spoilers.

Love Always, 
Freya