Okay, I'm a loser. I accept this as a fact of life. I'm into books that almost 21 year olds just shouldn't be into. For instance, I'm totally into the whole Percy Jackson thing. Percy Jackson and the Olympians? great. Heroes of Olympus? perfect. so when I heard about Rick Riordan's other mythology series about the Egyptian gods, I was all on board.
I started reading the first book in the series this evening. It's called The Red Pyramid. I'm currently about halfway through, and I don't want to sound harsh, but I really hate it. The plot is great it has a lot of potential. but the characters. god. the two main characters are named Carter and Sadie. for reasons that haven't really been explained, they were raised apart. They are both envious of the other.
Sadie lives with their grandparents on their mother's side in London where she complains because she can't fit in. apparently people asking where your dad is when he's a world famous Egyptologist is a difficult thing to live with. as is explaining that your mom is dead. seems pretty simple to me really. She's envious because Carter gets to live with their father.
Carter gets to travel the world with his father. He's envious because Sadie gets to have a normal life. Carter doesn't get any real kind of education and is constantly in danger because his father is on the run from a group of Egyptian magicians. He kind of gets the short end of the stick in my mind. they're constantly traveling and Carter never has a chance to really BE any place. he never gets to have any friends or make any memories. His whole life is what he can carry in one suitcase that can fit in an overhead compartment on an airplane.
So the story starts off with Carter and their father getting Sadie for their one day visit out of their two whole days visitation time for the year. and already I don't like Sadie. She's a bitch. she thinks she's so much better than her brother. and she's constantly making fun of him. and it only gets worse throughout the book!
Once they discover their powers she's like automatically good at them and Carter struggles. and she's like "haha. you suck!"
Usually, I'm all for strong female characters. but I fucking Hate Sadie. She has no redeeming qualities. And come on Rick! it seems to me like you made your main character (I see Carter as the main character) suck! If he doesn't get substantially better than Sadie (or at least shut her smug ass up) by the end of this book, I'm dropping the series. and That is not something I do lightly.
P.S. I know nobody that actually reads this will know or care what I'm talking about, but I had to get this little rant off my chest and I couldn't find any discussion forums about The Red Pyramid. I'm sure they exist, but I didn't really want to look for them very much.
And another thing! nobody ever explains a thing to these kids! the Percy Jackson had this problem too. The adults all know what's going on but they never explain it to the kids. to try and spare them I suppose? but then they send these kids into these dangerous situations with next to no knowledge about how to deal with their situations. it seems counter productive. and since nobody ever explains it to the kids, the reader doesn't know either. we're left in the dark knowing that someone knows but isn't telling us. I hate that.
I may do more book-y things like this in the future. It depends how I feel about books I read.
Ta-ta
Citrina
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