The Red Pyramid (The Kane Chronicles, #1) in The Not-So Austen Bookclub

Aug 22, 2023 Dayla rated it really liked it

Shelves: adventure, middle-grade, mythology, mglit, contemporary-fantasy

After having this book partially started on my shelves for years, I have finally finished it!! I'm glad I did, too, because I really enjoyed it. It was strange reading a mythology book by Riordan that wasn't connected to the other ones, but it was just as fun as his other series.

Much like his other books, Riordan explores more than just mythology in this one. He also talks about the very real discrimination mixed raced kids might experience when one looks different than their siblings--and we e ...more

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May 01, 2014 Shraddha rated it really liked it

This book was hilarious and thrilling. Carter was such a sweetie, and Sadie rocked. They were so funny! And gotta love Horus on his birthday! And Khufu was so adorable! Damn, that baboon is awesome! This book was just so funny. Just what you'd expect from Rick Riordan: an awesome storyline, with amazing characters, and a lot of humour. Bast and Zia were pretty cool, too. This book just cracked me up. I also read the graphic novel alongside the book, so it helped my imagination. Of course, it cou ...more

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Nov 02, 2009 Miss Clark rated it really liked it

Shelves: adventure, children-s, modern-presentday, fairytale-fantasy-sci-fi-mythology

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. 3.5 stars (We dearly need a half star rating here.)

Easily distinct in both tone and characterization from Riordan's Percy Jackson series, which I thankfully was introduced to by one of our librarians when the fourth book had just come out, this first installment in The Kane Chronicles, intended to be a trilogy, is a highly enjoyable adventure, with plenty of action, magic and the threat of world destruction. Carter and Sadie Kane are siblings, but have spent the greater portion of their lives a 3.5 stars (We dearly need a half star rating here.)

Easily distinct in both tone and characterization from Riordan's Percy Jackson series, which I thankfully was introduced to by one of our librarians when the fourth book had just come out, this first installment in The Kane Chronicles, intended to be a trilogy, is a highly enjoyable adventure, with plenty of action, magic and the threat of world destruction. Carter and Sadie Kane are siblings, but have spent the greater portion of their lives apart following the untimely death of their mother when Carter was 8 and Sadie 6. Carter remained with their father, Julius Kane, traveling the world to dig sites and other locations of archeological interest, while Sadie was left to be raised with her maternal grandparents in Britain. Consequently, Sadie and Carter don't truly know one another when the story starts and have precious little by way of affection between them, each envying what seems to them the advantages of their separate situations. Sadie felt abandoned by their dad, left behind in London and only seeing her father and brother twice a year, jealous of Carter getting to spend his life with their dad, traveling and free of regular school concerns. Carter wishes he could have had a more normal life, a settled home, friends. Curiously, I felt that this tension between them, as well as their years of living apart and the distance it caused between them, was never properly addressed. It is brought up, briefly, but I thought it would be a greater part of the story, them both getting to know one another and care about what happens to the other. It happened too fast and too simply for what seemed a more complex set of circumstances, and with their personalities, especially Sadie's.

So, when Julius and Carter show up for Visitation Day on Christmas Eve to visit Sadie, they end up going to the British Museum of Antiquities. While there, their dad blows up the Rosetta Stone, unleashing five gods of Egypt, gets himself killed and the children in serious trouble with the police. Their Uncle Amos takes them into his guardianship and brings them to the family ~~home~~ mansion in Brooklyn, New York. From that point out, it is one misadventure and fight after another as Sadie and Carter discover their family history, their own magical abilities and the fact that they must now stop Set before he destroys North America. Oh, and they are also hosts to the Egyptian goddess Isis and god Horus. Fun times.

There was less humor in this book than the Percy Jackson series, but hopefully we'll get more in the next two. The romantic tension with Zia was a bit too soon for my tastes, seeing as Carter and her have known each other less than ... a week? Rushing that a bit. It grew overlong - how many fights can you have until you get to the showdown? And I did not hear nearly enough about the magical system involved. I wanted a bit more explanation on why Sadie and Carter were kept apart growing up since they would/ do trigger each other's magic. How do they do that? Is that normal? What about Sadie's uncanny ability with the Divine words? Is she a diviner? However, I still enjoyed it and appreciated that while there is clearly much more to be told, there was a sense of resolution for this section that allows you to put down the book without tearing out your hair whilst being forced to wait for book two. I'll definitely being picking up the second book next year and looking forward to another adventure with Sadie and Carter, though hopefully without the things that bothered me this time.

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May 18, 2010 Jessica rated it really liked it

I was scared to read this book because I thought like almost everyone else... it's Percy Jackson and the Egyptions. I read it, and was pleased. What seperates it from the Percy series is the fact that there are two narrators, and one's a girl! Yea! But it is another Percy series. Oh well.

The plot did feel dragged out a bit. I read the book way too fast, so with the long plot, I'm sure I missed something. It's a very long book. Longer than the first two Percy books. You could take out one of the ...more

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Dec 11, 2010 HC rated it it was amazing

Shelves: rick-riordan

The Red Pyramid was as good as any of the Percy Jackson series! AWSOME!!!

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Nov 27, 2010 bookaholiclover rated it it was amazing

This was a book different from what Riordan, his book is different now cause it's not Greek mythology but Egyptian itself, the book brought thrillers, actions into the skin of the readers and myself. ...more

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