I have to say that I'm constantly surprised by how clever and funny the Percy Jackson book as. I don't know why I'm surprised per se... I mean these are incredibly popular books for a reason. Besides the stories themselves being fun, exciting adventures, I would say one of the reasons this series works for well with adult readers as well is its wittiness. Really, the same thing could be said about the Harry Potter series. I won't get into the parallels again because yes, you can make the case that the Percy Jackson series is influenced by HP. But the Percy Jackson series has its own unique voice and narrative and doesn't feel like just a rehashing of the same old story. 
 Ok back to the clever/funny stuff. On many occasions throughout Sea of Monsters, I found myself laughing out loud. Much of the dialogue is very witty and may actually be lost on younger fans reading the material. For example: 
 Hermes: You weren't able to talk sense into him? 
 Percy: Well, we kind of tried to kill each other in a duel to the death. 
 Hermes: I see. You tried the diplomatic approach. 
 Now that's just one example of many but it's just so clever and funny that I had to share it. A big part of the cleverness is having Percy be the narrator. He's basically just a fun likeable character. You root for him so much just because he's just so darn affable. He's also a bit complex. Percy does have some complicated feelings toward his father Poseidon. The book doesn't harp on the strained relationship but indirectly implies it. He has this absentee father that seems to ignore him and now he finds out he has a baby half-brother. It's a lot to take in. Percy can be immature at times but he's also very kind which picks up some of the slack on the maturity scale. However, Percy is a 13 year old boy so maybe I'm just seeing more complexity than is intended. But that's exactly my point. The story is clever enough to get a grown adult woman to empathize with a 13 year old boy! 
 If I had to find a fault, I suppose it would be the ending. Now, I was ok with the content of the ending and I felt like it was a good place to leave off on. The story still felt complete so I didn't mind the cliffhanger. I did have a problem with the pacing. It just felt rushed. Like ya, it's a good ending but the chapter leading up to it just felt a bit abrupt. I just think it could have been a bit smoother. But other than that, I was satisfied with the story and I'm excited to continue on!