After his adventures of the previous summer, Percy's pretty excited that he's made it almost all the way to the end of 7th grade without getting expelled. Nothing particularly weird has happened (unless you count the school's "project," the homeless kid they allow to be a student), and there are a few bullies--but Percy's dealt with bullies before. But then the monsters crash the dodgeball game, destroying the whole gym, and he knows there's something amiss. It's only when he and Annabeth get back to Camp Half-Blood do they understand the extent of the troubles--and now their only hope is to retrieve the Golden Fleece from the cyclops in the Sea of Monsters. 
 Like the first book in this series, this didn't really grab me. I still think it had its moments (Annabeth taunting the Cyclops: "It's Nobody!" and the Cyclops replying "Nobody! I remember you!" made me laugh out loud, but I'm a big Odyssey nerd that way), and it certainly moves. There's not much time to catch your breath before Percy is thrown headlong into more peril. While this series doesn't do much for me, it does make me wish I were 10 years old again, because if I were a fifth-grader? this series would rock harder than Harry Potter.