Jesse’s Reviews > The Red Pyramid > Status Update

No it really was that obvious that it was Amos! Lol. Idk exactly how all of this is going to play out but I’m sure that it’s gonna be a cliffhanger and we have a lot of casualties so far.

lol wait is set inside Zia??

Sadie, a 12 yr old girl, being horny for Anubis, who is written down to a young at heart teenage God of repose, is kind of weird. But—there is something inherently sleazy in my mind (and I doubt that I’m the only one) in the “traditional” horny male POV. We don’t read Carter describing Zia the same way, and there are multiple (good) reasons for that.

Carter’s most interesting character beat is a question of race. He has his own idea of what it means to be of African descent as it was taught to him by his father and how he has experienced it while traveling, coming to a bit of a head with the airline security officer. It’s a facet of POV that is absent in Sadie’s narration. She talks about mixed-race a little, but only as a list of things that other her.

Now that we are getting into the Gods inhabiting individuals (like Horus and Isis) we are getting more into the meat of the setting. I like that the book throws out Desjardin as a red herring when the whole “family” dynamic and messy replaying of conflicts all but ensure that Amos is going to be the avatar of Set. Also not sure what Bast’s deal is. I’m sure that there are a lot of “rules” to come.

Spend 50 pages or so around the first Nome, Iskander dies, and it’s predictably unsafe with Clearly Bad Guy Desjardin looking to kill the Kane kids. Also, now Zia is an ordered enemy. Yawn. Part of the strength of Harry Potter is in being able to marinate in the setting. The thrill ride pacing of Riordan books has its perks but it’s not satisfying in the same way.

Ohhh right Osiris and Set are brothers and Julius is Osiris’s host. Duuurrrrr I wonder where his brother Amos is, surely he’s not working as the host of Set or anything

The Kane kids are on a breakneck crash course through Egyptian mythology, just like Percy Jackson. Functionally, it means single characters are brought in during the daring dash to be really cool and then disappear in quick succession. Hopefully Zia sticks around longer than the others. A lot of the Kane dynamic is both siblings pulling the “I had SO MUCH worse a time!!” which is understandable if annoying.

It was initially refreshing but Sadie is already like 100% into this Egyptian insanity and you would hardly know that her and Carter have been separated for most of their aware childhoods. At the very least, the attitude of this branch of the Jackson mythos toward its gods is very different, classifying them more as forces of nature rather than the lovable Grecian scamps.

So I appreciate the delivery of this book over the Percy Jackson series mostly because it has a tad bit more weight to it. The “recording” framing device is an artificial abstraction but Carter and Sadie give me a better point of view than “guess I’ll just roll with it” Percy, and it helps to have someone who is simultaneously a hellion and Not Actually Down For Egyptian Shenanigans (Sadie)