ISBN: 0972342915

Genre: Young adult, Adventure

The following review was contributed by: John Walsh & CLICK TO VIEW John Walsh's Reviews

PJ Allen has moved with his mother to a small town in northern America after the death of his father. While he is coping with the stress of a new environment and attending a new school, he is also thrust into an entirely new life when it is revealed to him by the messenger god Hermes that he is in fact the descendant of Perseus. Not only that, but he is needed by Zeus and the rest of the gods to battle against a terrible danger that threatens the whole world. This is the basis of an exciting and readable new book for young adult readers by Robyn and Tony DiRocco. PJ meets all sorts of creatures and events from Greek myth and legend. Will he right all wrongs while back in his own world get the girl and win the big American football games?

While this is a pleasant enough book, which would be recommended for American readers – it is very Americocentric and probably irritating to many people from other countries – it is a disneyfied version of Greek myth and it reads just like the authors already plan to have it made into a cartoon film. Gods, monsters and titans alike speak as if they were characters from Garfield. PJ himself belongs to an elite which makes it difficult to identify with him – not only is he relentlessly middle class in all his attitudes but he is the star quarterback for the school’s American football team and can have his pick of good looking girlfriends. The comparison with Harry Potter that is made in some of the publicity for the book does the author no favours, although it is understandable why that tack is taken. Harry Potter may not suffer from the angst and loneliness of Peter Pan (in the book, that is, not the sanitised film versions) but he is at least an everyman who is recognisably struggling with the problems of growing up and dealing with human relationships with unsympathetic people. It would be a curious irony if people were to take up The Hero Perseus because of absurd concerns of witchcraft in the Harry Potter series when the DiTocco’s have provided a wholly unchristian universe – Greek myth is taught in the local secondary school PJ attends instead of conventional religion. The hero may not use magic spells to complete the plot but he does have magical items, immortal allies and, most important, has abilities granted to him by virtue of his birth.