Review of "The Serpent's Shadow" by Rick Riordan

NOTE: I don't think I can make good reviews. This is pretty much more of a reflection of what I have read than the real kind of critique Literature professors produce. And I would suggest you continue reading this (assuming you'd actually bother to do so) if you're finished will all the other books of Rick Riordan, because I will make some references. If not, then back off, because I don't suppose you'd want to be spoiled about Percy Jackson and the Olympians or The Heroes of Olympus series. Generally, this is just me ranting and rambling. You have been warned.
 

So. Here goes nothing.

As mentioned earlier, I have read ALL of Rick Riordan's books, except for those under the 39 clues series. His writing style improved tremendously compared to The Lightning Thief. Before, I would honestly say that I was purely driven to continue reading because of the plot and the characters, but his writing? Not so much. But as the Kane Chronicles progressed, I would give him a thumbs-up for his great improvement.

Reading the first page of the Serpent’s Shadow quite surprised me. I couldn’t believe it was only a trilogy. We all know that Riordan’s other series are definitely more than three books. But then again, with his knack of surprises, I won’t be surprise if another book comes out. Though it may not be officially a part of the Kane Chronicles, then perhaps it could be something like The Heroes of Olympus. Or, of course, a crossover between the two worlds.

One of the things that I like about Riordan is his ability to make interesting characters. In this installment, I would say that I have found Setne interesting. The same way Set has managed to amuse me. Admittedly, though, a lot of his characters have striking similarities with his previous ones, but still, he managed to still make them appealing and have their own charms. For instance, Anubis is like a replica of Nico di Angelo. But of course, they also have several differences – Nico di Angelo more immature and more driven by revenge, etc etc. I could go on and on. (But it doesn’t change the fact that I am ALWAYS fangirling for these two gorgeous characters. You should see me squeal with delight and make weird faces while reading. Yep, I just love them both to the deepest pits of Tartarus, or to the deepest layer of Duat.)

In that note, I would like to briefly say something about the romance in this book. This is what is appealing about adventure and fantasy – there’s always a fair dose of romance involved. The Sadie-Walt-Anubis thing is relatively quite complex, especially since I am a girl and I can understand how Sadie feels. Here is where the fandom would ship either Walt and Sadie or Anubis and Sadie. Rick Riordan might not have focused on this aspect, but I would most certainly say that he managed to baffle me with decisions as if I were Sadie Kane myself. Boy, that would require some serious decision-making skills. I love Anubis, of course, but poor Walt is also amazing. (Honestly, I was decided that Anubis and Sadie would be perfect. After all, Anubis had left me starstruck at book 1. I'm pretty sure, though, that Anubis isn't as extraordinary and all that . . . rather, it is Sadie Kane who was able to let me see him in that light because of her internal monologue and beautiful descriptions of him.)

I don't know if this is good news or bad news for me, but I wholly realized what was about to happen to Walt on chapter 14. Suddenly, an "Aha!" moment occurred to me and I knew what Rick Riordan was intending to do. That is, make Walt the host of the gorgeous death god. I would have enjoyed that shocking revelation if I weren't able to see through the author's plans. It was quite obvious, if you ask me. With the growing impossibility of Sadie's relationships, it was not unexpected something like that would happen. After all, as I have mentioned, romance is not clearly Riordan's thing. He wouldn't dare fiddle with it too intricately, such as making a tragic end to the relationship. There has to be a way. There has to be a safer option.

But despite that expected "happy ending" theme, somehow this book managed to be realistic. (Of course, there's magic all over and that's definitely not a sign of realistic , but let me explain first.) It's realistic in a sense that it managed to surpass expectations from the cliche events that happened in epic stories. For one, the battle of Carter and Bloodstained Blood was not on the side of our protagonist, and he surely suffered a lot from that encounter. Normally, what would happen was Carter would amazingly defeat the enemy almost unscathed. Also, the fact that he has been tempted several times by the Chaos god Apophis illustrated that Carter is human.

The other seemingly realistic event is the betrayal of Setne. Of course, this is quite expected, him being a treacherous magician and all that. But with the most interesting nature of Setne, it was hard to say. Even Carter thought a lot of times that the ghost was quite harmless. The reader would be inclined to believe so too. I don't like betrayals, of course, but it fitted very well in the story. Because if everything went well from there, then there won't be much of a thrill.

The trick that Sadie pulled off with Neith reminded me of The Mark of Athena when Annabeth Chase intelligently tricked Arachne. Aside from that particular one, several other instances in this book reminded me of Riordan's other works. Towards the end, the romance between Carter and Zia resembled that of Percy and Annabeth. And needless to say, Carter is quite similar to Percy in some ways as well.

Let us wrap things up.

In a way, I think this is even better than The Throne of Fire, but it is really hard to declare that. They are remarkable in their own ways. This book had less drama than the second installment. The tear-jerking kind of drama, if I may correct myself. But other than that, this has enough internal turmoil to confuse and baffle you as if you were the one making the decisions rather than Carter or Sadie. I would also like to commend Rick Riordan for effectively making this a page-turner. Most of the chapters ended in a cliff hanger, urging the readers to go on or else they would be torturing themselves in imagining what could plausibly happen next.

I rate this five stars. And I think Rick Riordan was right in making this a trilogy. It already stands amazingly well in its own shadow.