To be honest, at around 10-years-old, I read this book before The Lightning Thief but it was enough for me to fall in love with Percy, Grover and Annabeth’s dynamics and the whole world of Camp-Half Blood. I was a bit confused at parts and pretended I understood the context of the bigger-picture plot, however, Rick Riordan’s writing of Percy’s first-person narration makes it so much fun. Before this series, I was obsessed with fables and greek mythology stories which were super serious and valiant, so switching from those to the more modernised context and language of this series just made it a billion times more appealing to me as a child.