Friday, February 3, 2012

Review of The Red Pyramid


Synopsis in a Sentence: Carter and Sadie Kane, brother and sister, use their newly discovered magical powers to embark on an adventure to play their part in awakening the ancient Egyptian gods in order to save the world.

My Thoughts:
What a cute book (and series!) by Rick Riordan, author of the widely popular Olympians series featuring Percy Jackson. I actually haven't read the Olympians series yet, but I have the first two books on my to-read shelf! My mom gave me the first two books of this series for Christmas and so I jumped right in!

The Kane kids finally find out that they have magical powers when their archeologist father disappears after blowing up the Rosetta Stone at a museum in London. Their uncle, Amos, and the ancient Egyptian cat goddess, Bast, explain to them who they are (magicians who are able to channel ancient Egyptian magic), and tell them that they are to go on a quest to stop an evil god, Set from rising up and building the Red Pyramid which he will use to control the Earth. The Kanes realize that they must resurrect the other gods in order to help them do this. In other words, Ancient Egypt still lives.

Sound confusing? It actually is a little bit, and that's my only qualm with this book. It's meant for young adults, even kids, and I just had the feeling that this might be over their heads somewhat. However, it's a fascinating and fun adventure, and you really do learn some stuff about Ancient Egypt which is informative and cool! Rick Riordan writes fluidly and the action scenes are very well placed. Sadie and Carter are uniquely and well developed characters- you can't help but come to care about them. There were also a few laugh out loud moments in this book- I think Mr. Riordan probably has a pretty good sense of humor :).

I've always been interested and fascinated by Egyptology, and that's why I was excited to read this book! There are five books in the Olympians series, so I'm sure this author is planning on adding more to this series as well- can't wait to see what other adventures Sadie and Carter fall into next!