Rick Riordan is acclaimed by many to be a great author, and I agree with that. The way he writes under different personalities is really interesting, as well as very realistic, despite it being a book about Egyptian magic and gods. He does not take anything to the point of overboard, just uses subtle hints from time to time - which is more to my liking, I think. Both of the main characters have people they seem interested in (even if only minorly), and he does not make me feel as though I am going to barf up grossly chunky bits of early teenage romance. (If you want to understand this better, please check out one of my prior reviews, Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel, which although I liked it, was a little overboard on the romance level of things.)
This is seriously a good book - I could just let my brain relax with it, which, although some might argue otherwise, I feel to be a good thing, every once in a while.