The Red Pyramid - Rick Riordan

Title: The Red Pyramid

Author: Rick Riordan

Series: Kane Chronicles #1

Publisher: Disney Hyperion

Publication Date: May 4, 2010

Source: Purchased

I am glad I finally got around to reading this book.  For some reason or other, I had ended up with the impression of that this book was not very good.  This this book, and the series that it belongs to, is not that great.  That I shouldn't waste my time on it.  That  Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series was the only stuff worth reading.

That initial impression I had of this book turned out to be completely wrong.  I enjoyed this book immensely and am so glad that I finally got around to reading it.

This story has two narrators, Carter and Sadie.  Carter and Sadie take turns telling the story from their perspective.  We get to learn Egyptian mythology right along with them.  The two are brother and sister and are thrown into a world where Egyptian Gods are real and the particularly nasty Set, the God of Chaos, is attempting to destroy human civilization - starting with Phoenix, Arizona.  Set also happens to have their father held captive and they want nothing more than to rescue him.

I have never been a huge fan of Egyptian mythology, but I found what I learned from this book to be very interesting.  Though I must admit, there are many pieces and bits of this mythology that I am still unclear on.  I do not think this is a fault of Rick Riordan and how he wrote this book.  I think it is because Egyptian mythology just happens to be a very complex subject.

I do have one rather nit picky criticism for this book.  It has to do with the way Sadie narrated the story.  She is supposed to have a British accent.  There are points where she does use British lingo, but there didn't seem to be enough of it to keep that bit of her character alive in my head as I read.  She did not continually have the British accent for me as I read through the story.  Now, this does not take away from the story.  It was just something that kind of bothered me as I read through the 500+ page book.

If you were like me and have put this book off because of impressions that others gave you of this book, I suggest you take the jump and read it for yourself.  I went from thinking there was no way Rick Riordan could achieve a second time what he achieved with Percy Jackson, but I was wrong.  I give this book 5 out of 5 stars.

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