Sunday 8 May 2016

Book Review: The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan





Hello and welcome to my first book review. I've recently found myself reading a lot of Rick Riordan's book. I hadn't really realised how much until I picked up some books from the library and realised that all three were each a different book from three different series written by him.

The Book



The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan
I guess it started the night our Dad blew up the British Museum...

Carter and Sadie Kane's dad in brilliant Egyptologist with a secret plan that goes horribly wrong. An explosion shatters the ancient Rosetta Stone and unleashes Set, the evil god of chaos...

Set imprisons Dr Kane is a golden coffin, and Carter and Sadie are forced to run for their lives. To save their dad, they must embark on a terrifying quest from Cairo and Paris to the American South-west and discover the truth about their family's connection to the House of Life: an Egyptian temple of magic that has existed for thousands of years.

The pharaohs of ancient Egypt are far from dead and buried. And so, unfortunately are their gods...
 

The Review

I liked that it started out with telling us all about how it was a 'voice recording' and supposedly very real. I felt that that helped me get into the story quicker in a way. 

It was written in  both Carter's and Sadie's point of view. I think this worked quite well because it meant we didn't miss parts where something important happened in Sadie's if it had just been written in Carter's point of view, for example. Rick Riordan wrote it well in their views. I found that their wasn't really any confusion between point of views. It was pretty clear who was narrating. I found that they both were unique with district personalities. At beginning it didn't stay in one view for more than a chapter and I wished it would stay in that view for a bit longer but I found that as I moved further through the book that you were in either Carter's or Sadie's point of view longer. 



I found it a very entertaining read. There were many times when I couldn't help but laugh at some things. A lot of this was to do with the characters but sometimes when I read the chapter titles I couldn't help but laugh and wonder. A few examples were 'Aunt Kitty to the Rescue', 'Leroy Meets the Locker of Doom' and 'I Have a Date with the God of Toilet Paper'. Other things that did make me chuckle were how Sadie called Carter the Walking Wikipedia and the Crazy Chicken Warrior. Along with that she does quite mistakenly mispronounce some names like, Salamander instead of Iskander and ja-hooty instead of Djehuti. Though it was also funny it gave me a feeling for how to actually pronounce the names. Even with the humour there was present the ever lurking danger nearby. 

I think the characters were also well developed. Not only were Carter and Sadie very distant in their point of views but all the characters and particularly the gods and goddesses also had their own very distinct personalities. They all felt unique as well. Rick Riordan has done a good job with developing his characters. 

Something else I thought that worked well was the pictures that he included of the hieroglyphs because it gave me a better idea of what they looked like. 



Looking back I think somethings that could've have been better was descriptions of where they were. I think because they went from place to place so quickly you couldn't really get a good grasp of where they were and wonder if with a bit more description we could have had a better picture. 

There was a character who died in the book (I won't say who) but I feel that I should've felt sadder when they died. I think whether partly because of who they were or not or maybe that we didn't see exactly how they died but I felt like I should've been more upset and I wasn't. 

The third and final thing for me was that I only got a small sense of what their lives were like before all this. I would've liked to know what it was like a bit more. I felt I knew more of Carter's life before hand and even then that wasn't much. Just a little more to know how his Dad was like beforehand. What were their grandparents like as Sadie's guardians? You barely got to meet them. 



My Rating System

I have decided to do something a little bit different with my rating system. Instead of rating it out of 5 stars I will give it an A, B, C, D or E. The chart below gives an example of what each letter would correspond to in the star system. 



1
2
3
4
5
E
D
C
B
A



Overall I give it a ...


A B C D E

Overall I really enjoyed reading The Red Pyramid. 




Rick Riordan is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, the Kane Chronicles, the Heroes of Olympus, and Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard. He is also the author of the multi-award-winning Tres Navarre mystery series for adults.

For fifteen years, Rick taught English and history at public and private middle schools in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Texas. While teaching in San Antonio, Saint Mary’s Hall honored him with the school’s first Master Teacher Award.

While teaching full time, Riordan began writing mystery novels for grownups. His Tres Navarre series went on to win the top three national awards in the mystery genre – the Edgar, the Anthony and the Shamus. Riordan turned to children's fiction when he started The Lightning Thief as a bedtime story for his oldest son.

Today over forty million copies of his Percy Jackson, Kane Chronicles, and Heroes of Olympus books are in print in the United States, and rights have been sold into more than 37 countries. Rick is also the author of The 39 Clues: The Maze of Bones, another #1 New York Times bestseller

Rick Riordan now writes full-time. He lives in Boston with his wife and two sons.
His Website


Have you read this book? What did you think about it? What did you think about the character?



No comments:

Post a Comment