The Lighting Thief, by Rick Riordan

Percy Jackson and his mother, Sally Jackson, leave their apartment and Percy’s foul stepfather, for a weekend vacation, only to be awakened to the world of monsters. After a crazy attack by a raging minotaur, Percy’s mother tragically dies. Percy is knocked unconscious, and wakes up to find himself at Camp Half Blood. A camp for kids whose parents are Greek gods or goddesses. At Camp Half Blood, the kids learn to fight the monsters that track them down by their unique and luring smell, along with other camp activities. The kids are sorted into cabins depending on who their godly parent is. This is where Percy learns that he is a son of Poseidon, a god of the big three, who don’t usually have children. And that Zeus, the king god and Lord Of The Sky, believes that Percy has stolen his mighty Master Bolt.

Percy sets out on a quest to find and return the Master Bolt and the Helm of Darkness, to prove his innocence to Zeus. Percy also hears a prophecy told by a mummified oracle:

You shall go west, and face the god who has turned,

You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned,

You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend,

And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end.

And so his quest begins, as he sets off with two of his friends, Annabeth Chase, a daughter of Athena, and Grover Underwood, a Satyr. What they thought to be true is wrong, and they must fix it all by the Summer Solstice, or World War Three will commence. Percy meets all kinds of unexpected things on the way, a lover’s trap, the jerkface Lord Ares, and an old lady and her Chihuahua, who turn out to be monsters, and much, much, more.

With the aid of his connection with water and Poseidon and his friends, Percy just might settle this all by the Summer Solstice. Travel to the Underworld, and the six hundredth floor of the Empire State building, as they discover the baffling truths of the prophecy, and that maybe someone precious to Percy might not be gone at all.

All of this is told in one legendary book by Rick Riordan.