On the whole, Percy feels lost, unmotivated, and as though he’s never going to succeed at anything but causing trouble. The only upside to this year is that Percy managed to make it all the way through the school year before getting expelled. This isn’t unexpected for Percy, as the same thing has happened to him every year for the last several years. Teachers sigh at Percy and assign him detention after detention, which culminates in Percy’s expulsion from Yancy Academy at the end of the year. His ADHD means that he struggles to pay attention in classes, while his dyslexia means that he does poorly on every test he takes. The Percy that readers meet at the start of the novel feels as far from normal and heroic as possible. Through this, The Lightning Thief shows that normalcy has more to do with how one adapts to their circumstances than anything else-and that as people become more secure in their identities, no matter how normal or abnormal, they’re then able to go on and behave in heroic ways. As Percy settles in at Camp Half-Blood, a summer camp on Long Island for young demigods, and later embarks on a quest, he and his friends must examine the ways in which they’re seemingly normal and the ways in which they’re not, depending on the circumstances.

Percy’s sixth-grade year is shaping up to be much the same as previous years-except that once summer vacation starts, Percy discovers why he has such a hard time in school: he’s actually a demigod, or the son of a Greek god and a human mother, and his learning disabilities are typical for demigods and aren’t disabilities at all. Percy is a troubled kid-he wants to be good and do well in school, but he struggles with dyslexia and ADHD, and he has a knack for getting into major trouble at every opportunity. The Lightning Thief introduces readers to 12-year-old Percy Jackson.

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