The Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan

Hey, guys. I'm so excited for what I'm reviewing today. It is, obviously, The Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan. This has been one of my most anticipated books all year long and I can't believe I finally go to read it. It came out on the sixth of this month so it's a pretty resent release. So, for those of you who don't know this is the first book in a trilogy and it is about this boy named Magnus Chase. He is homeless and has been homeless for about two years now, since his mother died, and he's dropped out of school, but he's still doing pretty well all things considered. Until he dies. Yep that's it. End of story. See ya next week. No, not really. He ends up being taken to this hotel of sorts where he is eventually given the task to go kill a monster and clear another person's name within, I believe, it was nine days. Basic plot set-up.

Now, this is a Rick Riordan book and it does mythology, Norse mythology, in this case so yes. Expect the usual witty humor, godly interference, and characters that pretty quirky, but not to the point where they become unrealistic. I think that's a fine line that Riordan walks exceptionally well. So let's talk about a few of these characters. Magnus is pretty cool. He is real in that he shows his pain to the reader and does it in short bursts so he doesn't seem like he's really sad but there are short remarks that get you. The best way I can describe him is as being blunt. He has some really good one liners in this book that I have to stop to applaud. And, because I've heard this comment a lot, I don't think he's too much like Percy Jackson because Magnus is a lot more blunt, he isn't as thick headed, and he is just overall more detached from his emotions than Percy is. But that's just a side note. Other characters are pretty interesting, Sam is like a guide to Magnus and she is definitely like a fairly typical girl who happens to be half god. Totally normal. But she is for sure misunderstood a lot and has to work around it. For those of you who read this book, this may sound kind of weird, but Jack is probably one of my new favorite side characters. I think of him as Percy Jackson levels of sass but because it's contained, when the sass comes out, it's out! He's great on so many levels.

As for the plot, Riordan's style of action now, explain later, is very prominent. He drags you in so quickly and you have about a thousand questions that all get answered in time, but exploring the world in the mean time is so fun because you don't have the detraction of thinking that you're in moral danger all the time. The world here is fairly different from what Riordan has done in the past because it's a lot less intimidating at first. Well, no, I take that back. It's a lot less threatening at first.

So I do feel like I need to address this because I think a few people have been saying things like this book is the same as all of his others and in some ways it is and in others it isn't. The way that it is similar is the world is based off of ancient mythology meaning it is run in similar ways as his other books. But in this one, we get to see that all of these different worlds, or types of ancient religions coexist. And I think that's great because they do so peacefully, kind of like religion should be in general, but I don't want to go into that because this would be a much longer post than it needs to be but I do think it's sending the right message, but I digress. I also think it's kind of like individual lives in that we all experience the same mile stones but the paths to getting from point A to point B are never the same. So while the premise of these books may be similar, I do think that the plots are vastly different. And that's where I'm going to leave off today. I hope you guys enjoyed this post, and I'll see you next week. 5 out of 5 stars.