Rick Riordan’s first series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, is a fantasy story where Riordan takes ancient greek myths and applies them to the modern world. These stories were fun reads when I was younger, but I thought one of the more interesting aspects of  was Percy’s relationship with Luke. Riordan does great work building a sympathetic antagonist in Luke over the course of the story, and an even better job unfolding that character through Percy’s eyes. These stories were completely ubiquitous back in the early 2000’s. The cool kids all read Riordan. The Lightning Thief, first in the series, even began its own critically panned movie franchise (it quickly died off, may it rest in peace). For my money anyway, this series is far and away Riordan’s best work. His other series can’t hold a candle to Percy Jackson (I imagine that’s why Mr. Jackson keeps coming back). Anyways, these books are a lot of fun if you’re looking to breeze through a quick and entertaining read, so they’ve got my stamp of approval. And if you haven’t read them, you definitely should, even if only for cultural awareness.