But I would love an old 1950-style commercial where they're pitching the hunters.

Ah, yes.

A boy three tomorrow can be yours today. What's good. Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of the newest Olympian. My name is Mike Schubert. I'm the titular Newst Olympian. I'm a grown man who never read the Percy Jackson books as a kid, but I'm reading them for the very first time as an adult because I'm on a quest to determine if this is a book series that we as a society have been sleeping on. But I'm not on this quest alone. I am joined by someone that is a big old fan of the Percy Jackson series. They're the host of the new podcast, You Are What You Love, and the creator of the not as new podcast, That Vampire Show.

It's Marissa Tandon, Marissa. How's it going?

Good. Hey, Mike. How are you?

I'm doing very well. It's been a day, two days since we last spoke when we reported my appearance on You Are What You Love, so fun stuff.

Maybe 24 hours? Yeah, I feel like.

Been a quick turnaround,

but the reason that is a quick turnaround is we talked about Percy Jackson, and it was very apparent that we got to get you on the show. And I am very excited to have you on the show.

We're going to be talking about all of chapter six and as much of chapter seven as we can get into of the Titans Curse. But before we get into that, what is your history with the Percy Jackson books? How'd you come about them, et cetera? I had to look it up last night to make sure I wasn't misremembering. But the first book came out four days after my 11th birthday. Okay. And I think Percy's 12 in the first one as well. Yes. So I was

reading everything I could get my hands on at the time. They were slightly under my reading level,

but I was living in a very, very, very small town in Florida. And so I had no friends.

Oh no. And I was like the kid who read in the lunchroom.

That was, I always had a book in my hand.

I was reading a lot, like way more than a normal child was reading at that time.

So my dad would buy me a book and then the same day I would have already finished the book.

And he was just like, you really need to invest in a library card because this is just

unsustainable. But for my birthday every year, I would get like a boarders gift card throwback.

And I went probably that same shopping trip for my birthday. And the first one was out. And I read it and I was

obsessed with it instantly. And I pretty much grew up with them, pretty much the same age after each book,

I think, or close to whatever Percy's age was at the time. And I moved back to L.A. and I made my

first friends because of Percy Jackson. There you go. Look, it comes full circle, but the opposite.

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