The Red Pyramid

The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is the latest series by the author of The Olympian Chronicles--(the Percy Jackson books). My 10-year-old and 11-year-old loved that series, and they really liked this book. It definitely has similarities to the first Percy Jackson book (where Percy learns he is a demi-god and must go to the underworld to save his mom)--this time it is an estranged brother and sister, Carter and Sadie, who find out they are from the blood of the Pharaohs and they must go to the underworld to save their father. It is still interesting to see the difference between the two belief-systems. Like the other series, this book has lots of battling monsters, magic creatures, etc.
Two criticisms: the book is written as a transcript of Sadie and Carter retelling their adventure on a tape recorder. It is a great idea: the beginning lines are "We only have a few hours, so listen carefully " (brilliant) But they change narrators every 2 chapters and even though the narrator is on each page heading, I think it would be less confusing if each narrator had his own typeface.
The other is that though Riordan certainly knows and respects the stories of other belief systems, I wish that his characters wouldn't curse as often as they do. Sadie must say OMG at least once each chapter. Both series talk about how powerful a gods name is just by saying it, so I just wish his characters wouldn't curse our God so often.

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