Percy Jackson and the Olympians: book 2: The sea of monsters

In this book there are a few things that reminded me of something else: three kids: a smart girl and a goofy boy plus the protagonist of the title, which would be enough to remind of H.P., but here there was also the night taxi, anad the craziest drive ever, although they don't end up beated by a tree here. There's also the name of Crono that should never be named, only Percy does it anyway :-) but it doesn't matter, I'm not saying he copied Rowling's work, not at all, a little similarity doesn't matter. Percy's books are really different, and in this one the goofy kid changes, because Grover is who knows where, and in big trouble, and they go help him. A strange kid that Percy has known at his school goes with them because it turns out he's a cyclop, and Poseidon't son! Everybody seems to hate cyclops (well, everybody except Beckendorf, who has no problem with cyclops at all, on the contrary he takes Tyson to work with him), apparently they're evil (!) and Percy is somehow embarassed about that, keeps saying they're not brothers, and yet the cyclop Tyson appears to care about him a lot, even saved his life when they found the camp had been attacked and they joined the other kids to defend it.
Chiron is going away because he's been fired and accused of having poisoned the Thalia-tree, but in his dreams of Grover Percy has seen the Golden Fleece, the only thing that could cure it. Tantalus, who has been sent to replace Chiron, gives the quest to Clarisse, and she wants to go alone. Hermes comes to talk to Percy with a couple of gifts for him, and I must say I liked this Hermes a lot, he really seemed a decent God all in all, even nice. :-) Percy, Annabeth and Tyson go on the same mission by themselves, disobeying the camp and Tantalus orders. Poseidon sends them three hippocampi to take them wherever they need to go, and they reach the ship that Hermes told them, and there they find Luke in bad company, and apparently Luke wants the Golden Fleece too, to use it to revive Cronos or something like that. They flee the ship and reach land, and here there's a bizarre, silly story about chain stores that open up so quickly and so many, and apparently it's because they're a sort of monster, or depending on a monster, anyway, they meet this hydra but have trouble finding the fire that could kill it. Fortunately Clarissa comes on her ship full of zombies and fires cannons at it. Together they reach the entrance to the sea of monsters, but the monsters Scilla and Cariddi destroy the ship. Annabeth and Percy are still together, but have no news about Tyson's fate. They think he died when Clarissa's ship was destroyed. They meet Circe, who transforms Percy into a Guinea pig, because she thinks all men are pigs but she now prefers guinea pigs because are smaller and not so smelly. To save him, not knowing which one is Percy, Annabeth frees them all, and the others were Blackbeard and some of his men. Annabeth and Percy steal his ship and go away, but when they meet the syrens Percy has to save her. Finally they reach Polyphemus's island and meet Tyson again and also free Clarissa. They take the Fleece and reach a beach, where Percy gives Clarissa money to fly to the camp and the Fleece. Then Percy meets Luke and secretly opens a Iris-phone call to the camp so they can hear that Luke poisoned the tree, not Chiron. Percy and his friends are saved from Luke and his "friends" by Chiron and his centaur-friends. Percy learns why everybody suspected Chiron: he's Cronos son. Back at the camp, the Fleece cures the tree by removing all the poison, only it works too well and removes "everything", not just the poison. They find Thalia next to it, a normal girl again. I liked the Thalia-tree a lot, because it reminded me of the Eretria, the tree that had the same role of keeping the monsters out in the Shannara series, but I was glad that here it had a different ending. I'm very curious to know this daughter of Zeus :-)