Hey guys, coming at you with a review for a book that I didn’t like this time.
When Rick Riordan announced his side project Rick Riordan Presents, I was really excited. I was a big fan of Percy Jackson growing up and I’ve enjoyed a lot of the stuff that Rick has been coming out with lately. I feel that a lot of fans had these same thoughts when they were heading into this novel. Now, before I really get into everything that I didn’t like about it, I should tell you that I finished this book in a matter of 6 hours. Not because it was good, but because it was so bad, I didn’t want to have to come back to it later to finish it. I hate unfinished book business.
So this book got 2 out of 5 for me, the 1 was for the writing because it was still done well, .5 of star was for the idea, and another .5 because I learned something from this book. I love mythology and learning about other cultures through it is always an interesting experience, especially at a time now in our society where Indian culture can be stigmatized and misrepresented.
Now, to get into it. The main reason for my hating this book had heavily to do with the fact that the entire story played out exactly like the Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief movie. Right down to finding the marbles, the talking half-animal companion, travelling to the underworld to make a deal with the devil, saving Aru’s mom from the supernatural. There were too many similarities for me to genuinely enjoy this, I kept picking things out of it that I hated. It’s very unfortunate considering how highly I anticipated this novel, I mean I was searching for it for days before it even came out, and got it exactly on the release date.
One big problem for me regarding this also had to do with how highly Rick regarded this novel. I mean obviously he has to promote it, it has his name on it. However, he went above and beyond just support for the book (I think he keeps it on his bedside table, like, his bible or something). Which made me think of another serial he had come out with recently named: Magnus Chase And The Gods of Asgard. This. This series I anticipated the crap out of. I love Norse myth, definitely my favorite pantheon. The series though? awful. Complete garbage. The writing was bad, the characters were interesting but I couldn’t get past the amount of potty humor in the book itself, and I found myself wondering how it got to be that way? Rick never wrote like that, his earliest writing is the best he’s ever done, being Percy & The Olympians & The Blood of Olympus series, and I fear he’s spiraling downwards.
I’d love to know how others felt though. This book got a 4+ star rating on Goodreads and I definitely have cause to believe that it’s the fans, wanting desperately for anything to reflect the same stories that changed our childhoods.
Or maybe I’m just getting older.
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