The Red Pyramid (2010) *Spoiler Free* Review // DON’T SLEEP ON THIS BOOK!

TITLE: The Red Pyramid

AUTHOR: Rick Riordan

SERIES? Book 1/3 “The Kane Chronicles” Trilogy

GENRE/ AGE RANGE: Middle Grade, Mythology

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Racism, enclosed spaces, death, loss of a loved one, injury, sibling separation

PUBLICATION DATE: May 4th, 2010

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Character/Terms Guide ⇩

►Carter Kane → Main character, American, darker skin than Sadie, black
►Sadie Kane → Main character, raised in England, only saw dad & twice a year, British accent, lighter skin, dyed hair, blue eyes, 12 years old
►Dr Julius Kane → Sadie & Carter’s dad, dark brown skin, big guy, Egyptologist
►Ruby Kane → dead, S & K’s mum, Anthropologist, died in London
►The Fausts → Carter and Sadie’s grandparent’s on the mother’s side
►Muffin/Bast→ Sadie’s cat, going away present from dad, female
►Amos Kane → trenchcoat, American accent, C & S’s uncle
►Khufu → Baboon, loves LA Lakers & butter, doesn’t wear pants, only eats foods ending in ‘O’
►Phillip of Macedonia → Albino crocodile, likes bacon, pink eyes
►The Red Lord/Set → Fiery guy
►Zia Rashid → Scribe to the house of life, trained to fight gods
►Desjardins → French guy, forked beard
►The Master/Lector Iskander → really old, The Chief
►Demon → Minion of chaos
►Duat → The world of spirits and magic

“It takes strength and courage to admit the truth.”

THE GOOD

• Theackground commentary from C & S is a lot of fun
• I just really love Riordan’s writing
• Really tackles racism – Carter and Sadie don’t look related, Sadie looks like mum not dad and vise versa for Carter. There’s little things like police not blaming Sadie (light-skinned, blue eyes) but also assuming the dad is part of an extremist group & Carter (looks like his dad) is a troublemaker
• Carter wears khaki trousers, button-downs
• This series also shines a light on sibling relationships which is really interesting because Carter and Sadie were separated at age 6. i really can’t wait to see how their relationship develops!
• Carter is a nerd and I love it. Sadie is just tired, I also love it.

“I wasn’t a ghost. I had a new shimmering golden form with wings instead of arms. I was some kind of bird. [No, Sadie, not a chicken. Will you let me tell the story, please?]…” 

There’s a lot of fun little moments like this throughout the series and they’re so much fun to read!

• Carter predominantly wears khaki trousers and button downs, so basically he dresses like Indiana Jones’ dad, but nowhere near as cool. For real though, imagine a 12-year-old dressed like that? And the reason behind it is so sad, too!

“I remember the first time he explained it to me. I was ten. We were on our way to the airport in Athens, and it was like 112 degrees, and I was complaining that I wanted to wear a T-shirt. Why couldn’t I be comfortable? We weren’t going anywhere important that day – just travelling. My dad put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Carter, you’re an African-American man. People will always judge you more harshly, and so you must always look impeccable.’ “

THE MEH

• Starts off similarly to pjo – “if you’ve found this story etc”
• I really don’t love the female narrator, so I’m wondering if she’s part of the reason why I haven’t warmed up to Sadie as much as I have Carter, or if that’s a writing thing.
• This is obviously an earlier novel in his career feels very middle-grade
• This story mentions other gods, you can tell Riordan already had an interest in Greek gods
• I want to say that this is totally separate to PJO + later books but you can see the inspiration and ideas for PJO that he carried over to his other series.
• This story has a different take on Gods – fight them, use their power, control them etc. The gods are pretty much the “bad guys” in this world. I really enjoy this twist on the gods, Riordan never puts the gods on a pedestal in his books and I’m really enjoying this perspective. The gods are portrayed as very upper-class and greedy!
• A lot of similarities to pjo. Nectar (pjo) & purified water (tkc) + other that I can’t really explain it but it just feels really similar. It’s the same author obviously so that’s a big contributor but, this really does feel like a precursor to Percy Jackson sometimes (definitely not all the time) which can really take you out of the book at times. That being said, this is fantastic on its own and where I think Percy Jackson has a big focus on friendship which I love, this trilogy has a big focus on family and sibling relationship development which is not something we see often and I’m living for it!
• Carter: *looks vaguely uncomfortable* Sadie: ZIA
• I don’t think this bothered me the first time I read this but the ending felt really slow and it took me a really long time to read and I had to take breaks (keeping in mind that I’m not a particularly fast reader anyway and I have a short attention span).

HAVE YOU READ THE RED PYRAMID?
an