2 August 2013

The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

The Red Pyramid (The Kane Chronicles #1)
by Rick Riordan

Since their mother's death, Carter and Sadie have become near strangers. While Sadie has lived with her grandparents in London, her brother has traveled the world with their father, the brilliant Egyptologist, Dr. Julius Kane. 

One night, Dr. Kane brings the siblings together for a "research experiment" at the British Museum, where he hopes to set things right for his family. Instead, he unleashes the Egyptian god Set, who banishes him to oblivion and forces the children to flee for their lives. 

Soon, Sadie and Carter discover that the gods of Egypt are waking, and the worst of them —Set— has his sights on the Kanes. To stop him, the siblings embark on a dangerous journey across the globe - a quest that brings them ever closer to the truth about their family and their links to a secret order that has existed since the time of the pharaohs.



I was really excited to read The Kane Chronicles because I'm a massive fan of the Percy Jackson series and the Heroes of Olympus series. Plus, this would be the first book I've ever read that had to do with Egyptian Mythology and I don't know much about it so I was excited to discover it. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this as much as Riordan's other series. This one was much slower paced, boring in some parts and there were sometimes where I felt like I was getting a massive info dump and I just couldn't process everything.

So I did like the characters Sadie and Carter. I also liked how this whole book was them actually telling you the story. They've been through all of this and they're recounting it on tape and there's some funny moments where they're arguing before they get back to the story. I really enjoyed their relationship and seeing them become closer as the story went on was nice because even though they're brother and sister, they only saw each other twice a year. So it was nice to see them developing a proper sibling relationship and looking out for each other.
Sadie and Carter were both great characters in their own way. Sadie was smart and more powerful when it came to magic. Carter was stronger and more knowledgeable of Egyptian Mythology that Sadie which came in handy a lot of the time.

The whole story was focused on Sadie and Carter rescuing their father from the Egyptian Gods that he awoke the night they were at the museum. Carter and Sadie are on the run and must get to America to stop Set before the day he was born. 
Sadie and Carter encounter a lot of trouble on their way. Set has sent monsters to kill/capture them and also The House of Life are after them because their father broke the rules by summoning the Gods and using their powers. They want Carter and Sadie to pay for their parents mistakes.

So like I said, this was a pretty slow moving storyline. The book is huge, but I just felt like I was pushing myself through parts of it and they were dragging on and on. There were parts I found boring, but there were other parts that were exciting and thrilling and I was flying through those parts. But for me, there wasn't enough of the exciting things. There was a lot of info dumping in this book. If it had been done a different way I might have understood everything that was going on in this book, but I honestly have no idea what the whole back story of this book is. I barely took in any of the Egyptian Mythology stuff.

Overall, I did enjoy this book. The ending did make me really want to read the next one because I'm curious to find out about Zia and where she is. So yeah, I will be getting around to The Throne of Fire eventually.

2 comments:

  1. I think the next book is better. (I'm trying to remember it has been awhile since I read these.) I'm a huge Percy Jackson fan as well and I enjoyed the Kane Chronicles, but they aren't as good as Percy. Like you, my favorite part about the Kane book is that the brother and sister are telling us a story, and well them together is pretty funny as well. Great review!

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    1. I'm hoping the next book will be better. I'm planning to get my hands on Throne of Fire soon though. I loved the sibling relationship! And the fact they were telling the story and squabbling at the start of the chapters.
      Thanks!

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