The Red Pyramid Review

I had a fantastic weekend. The Lodger (new episode of Doctor Who) was hilarious and the teaser trailer for next week's episode made me fangirl squeal for about ten minutes. Rachel Alexandra FINALLY won her first race of the year after two close misses. Zenyatta made racing history in becoming the first modern day Thoroughbred to win 17 straight unrestricted races. I may have accomplished nothing writing-wise, but overall a great weekend and I'm refreshed and ready for a nice, long writing-work week.

The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

Since his mother's death six years ago, Carter Kane has been living out of his suitcase, traveling the globe with his father, the brilliant Egyptologist Dr. Julius Kane. But while Carter's been homeschooled, his younger sister, Sadie, has been living with their grandparents in London. Sadie has just what Carter wants -- school friends and a chance at a "normal" life. But Carter has just what Sadie longs for -- time with their father. After six years of living apart, the siblings have almost nothing in common. Until now.

On Christmas Eve, are reunited when their father brings them to the British Museum, with a promise that he's going to "make things right." But all does not go according to plan: Carter and Sadie watch as Julius summons a mysterious figure, who quickly banishes their father and causes a fiery explosion.

Soon Carter and Sadie discover that the gods of Ancient Egypt are waking, and the worst of them -- Set -- has a frightening scheme. To save their father, they must embark on a dangerous journey -- a quest that brings them ever closer to the truth about their family and its links to the House of Life, a secret order that has existed since the time of the pharaohs.

**Warning, usually I separate the spoilers-included and no-spoilers reviews. It was hard to do that with TRP's. There may be some spoilers in this review.**

For the record, I've been a huge fan of Rick Riordan ever since I read the Lightning Thief four years ago. So when I found out that he had a new book out, I had to get it. Basically this was my Riordan fix before The Lost Hero comes out in the fall. I was excited to hear that he was doing Egyptian mythology since I don't know much about it.

I thought the story was cute, but not as good as Percy Jackson.

First of all, The Red Pyramid feels a lot like a repeat of PJ with Egyptian mythology to replace the Greek. The voice for both stories is very similar. Both stories suffer from Missing Parents Syndrome where the main character has one existing parent while something has already happened to the other. Then the existing parent gets kidnapped and the MC has to go save them. Both stories have the MC chasing one danger that turns out to be the start of something much much larger.

Despite that, there were still a lot of things I loved about the story.

It's told in the alternating PoVs of main characters, Sadie and Carter. Sadie was my favorite of the two. I also loved their little side comments on the "tape transcript" to each other. Those were cute little side bits. Overall my favorite character was Bast. As a cat owner myself, I could really appreciate the catty bits of her personality. The whole thing with Zia really confused me for awhile, but I think I get it now.

I love the Percy Jackson reference about Manhattan having different gods. It made me laugh.

GAH huge cliffhanger ending. Anyone know if there's going to be another one? Preferably very soon? Please? I need to know what happened to Zia!!

Overall: 7/10