Percy Jackson and the Olympians

About the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series

Percy Jackson is a twelve-year-old New Yorker with dyslexia, ADHD and a talent for getting expelled — until a math teacher turns into a monster and his world stops making sense. Percy learns he is a demigod: the son of Poseidon, one of the Greek gods still very much alive and running their affairs from a hidden Olympus above the Empire State Building. Shipped off to Camp Half-Blood, the only safe place for children like him, Percy is promptly accused of stealing Zeus's master lightning bolt and sent on a cross-country quest to prevent a war among the gods.

Rick Riordan's series runs Greek mythology through a modern American blender with enormous wit — Medusa runs a garden-gnome emporium, Ares rides a Harley — while quietly telling a warmer story about kids who have been labelled 'problems' discovering that their differences are literally superpowers. The original five books (2005–2009) chart a prophecy that builds to a full-scale war for Olympus.

Fourteen years later, Riordan returned to Percy's own voice with the 'Senior Year' adventures — The Chalice of the Gods (2023) and Wrath of the Triple Goddess (2024) — lighter, funnier quests about a war veteran demigod who just wants recommendation letters for college. The series is the front door to the wider 'Riordanverse', which continues in The Heroes of Olympus and The Trials of Apollo.

How to read this series

Read in publication order: The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Titan's Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth and The Last Olympian form the original, complete five-book arc. The two recent 'Senior Year' novels — The Chalice of the Gods and Wrath of the Triple Goddess — are direct sequels narrated by Percy, but they are set after The Heroes of Olympus and The Trials of Apollo, so ideally read those series first (you can enjoy them straight after book five, with minor spoilers for later series).

Companion volumes (The Demigod Files, Percy Jackson's Greek Gods, Camp Half-Blood Confidential) are optional extras. After The Last Olympian, continue the main story with The Lost Hero, the first Heroes of Olympus book.