Turner Garland

Turner Garland
The Red Pyramid
Rick Riordan
Fantasy
Just Right
Just Finished 516

1. I have just finished The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan. This book is about a powerful egyptian family. The two protagonists are Carter and Sadie Kane, that are the children of two egyptian magicians. The two kids have no idea that their family is very powerful, and much less that they are magicians. After their mothers death, Sadie and Carter were separated. Sadie went to live with her grandparents in London and Carter travels the world helping his dad who is an egyptian archeologist. The two kids are finally introduced into their families secret one night at a museum. Their father is working to try and release the egyptian gods by using the rosetta stone. This plan goes horribly wrong and their dad is captured by Set, the god of chaos. Sadie and Carter join together and they have to defeat Set to save the world and their father. In the end of the book the Kane's are able to defeat Set and  make him go into the Duat until he is summoned again. The Kane's were able to save the world from a fatal storm that could have demolished North America, but they weren't able to completely save their father. Carter and sadie find out that their friend Zia is actually made of clay and that she was alive somewhere else. After defeating set at the Washington Monument the kids return to Brooklyn were their uncles house is. After weeks of repairs the house is made new again, using a lot of magic, and  their uncle Amos is finally healing after being possessed by Set. The two kids are then paid a visit by Osiris the god of the dead, who was paired with their father. Carter and Sadie meet their father again and also their mother for the first time in 10 years. Carter gives up Horus, who was paired with him and Sadie gives up Iris. Their father choses to remain in the Duat with his wife and the kids then live with their uncle.

2. I really liked this book, and it is one of my all time favorites. I enjoyed almost every aspect of this book and besides being fantasy, I actually learned a lot about the egyptian history. I really liked how Rick Riordan used a lot of true facts in his story, like the name of the gods and different things that the egyptians believed in. I liked the plot of the story and also the very well developed characters. The plot was very quick paced and was so exciting. The only part of this book that I didn't like was that it started off slowly. Although this was needed to set a good base for the story it discouraged me a little. I started to read this book last year and then stopped only about 40 pages into it because I thought it was boring, but once I got into it, it was so good. Almost every single chapter was packed with action that once I got into the story I didn't want to put the book down. There were so many characters in this book but Rick Riordan was able to introduce each character with a lot of detail so that you felt you knew them by the end of the book. I liked how he wrote this book as a recording from Sadie and Carter's point of view but it sometimes got very confusing. Sometimes I would think that it was Carter talking and then it turned out to be Sadie and I had to rethink what had just happened just in the other characters point of view. Rick Riordan is an old favorite of mine. I read the whole Percy Jackson series and loved it. I hope to read The Red Pyramid's series and I am pretty sure that I will love it too.

3. Theme in this book is trust between family members. This theme shows up through the entire book. From when Carter and Sadie find out about their families secret, to when Amos is possessed by Set trust between family members is needed. This theme is shown with the entire Kane family. When a new character such as Bast is introduced, The two siblings have to trust that Amos wouldn't allow someone dangerous or careless to protect them. Before Mrs.Kane died Bast swore that she would protect the children no matter what. Carter and Sadie had to trust that their parents thought that Bast was a good protecter. The entire Kane family must trust the kids to save the world. This trust and also pressure on Carter and Sadie is there almost the entire book. Julius Kane had to trust his kids and believe that they could defeat Set and save him. Without trust between family members, this book Carter and Sadie might not have been able to save the world.

4. My Favorite character in this book was Carter Kane. I think that he has a bit of the dream life. He doesn't have to go to school, he gets to travel the world and also he is a very powerful magician. I also really like his personality. With all the drama and being hunted down by many different monsters and gods, he is funny and has a crush on Zia. I like how he changed so much throughout the entire book. At the beginning he was scared and nervous but by the  end of the book he was strong and confident. The way that Rick Riordan tied in modern day was also funny. For example Kufu, the baboon was wearing a Lakers jersey, Carter and the baboon started having a conversation about basketball.

5. My least favorite character was Set. In this story he was the bad guy, the villain. without him the book wouldn't have been as nearly as interesting, but I definitely didn't like his personality. He was so angry and wanted to destroy the world with really no reason. He also was very cocky. At the end of the  book when he was fighting Carter he was always like "You can't defeat me!" or other things like that. He is a traitor of the gods, he imprisoned Osiris, and wanted to kill Horus and Iris that had paired with Carter and Sadie.

6. The ending was somewhat what I had predicted. I thought that Carter and Sadie would in the end, defeat Set. But the details in which they did, and also how they defeated him I did not expect. I thought that they would have killed Set and send him far into the Duat, but they instead made him promise to stay in the Duat until he was summoned. I though that this was a bad idea because he has a lot of power and could easily break that promise. When the Kane's actually defeated Set they were in Washington D.C. which I would never had expected and made the book much more interesting. In the end I thought  that the father would be saved and he would return to the real world. When I read that he was going to stay in the Duat, I was very surprised. Although he didn't die, he would never return to the actual world which is similar. I wish that Rick Riordan had made it so that he did survive. I think that it would have been a good ending if the kids and Julius could have meet and he could teach them his magic tricks. The ending was pretty unpredictable and I liked it a lot.