The Sword of Summer

There comes a time in every author's career where he or she must try something new. For me, I get the feeling that this will happen soon to Cassandra Claire, author of the shadow hunter series of novels. I think that now would be the time for Rick Riordan as well. While I was looking forward to The Sword of Summer I do think that it feels a little bit same-y after I have read both the Percy Jackson and the Heroes of Olympus series. I can start to see the descriptions in his writing become repetitive. And yet...I really enjoyed this book.

I think that is because that there is just enough of a difference here to make me like these characters. The world is darker than anything Riordan has written yet, there are even a few curse words in here, which I think is a first. Magnus is a character who had a darker backstory than his other counter parts in the Riordan world. And many of the other characters have just as dark a backstory as he does. This makes for a slightly different narrative that, as much as I tried, I could not help getting into and enjoying.

I must admit that I was a little hesitant at starting this book because of the fact that my last experience of reading Riordan's non-greek books, The Kane Chronicles, was not what I would have called enjoyable. I felt that the first book was one that just lacked the heart of the original series (Percy Jackson), and it lacked the three or more protagonists going on some type of quest, and went with two boring main leads.. Now, I think, Riordan has learned from his mistakes with that last series, and now we have a few other characters to focus on. One being a fashion oriented dwarf, a def magic seeking elf, and a former valkyrie, who are all helping Magnus on his quest. Riordan has always said that he has loved Norse mythology and it shows in these books. It definitely has the same amount of heart as his other books, and it was nice to go on this journey with him. Also, I give him bonus points for including a main character who is Muslim in here. You just don't see that kind of diversity in these mainstream books today.

I also liked how one did not have to read any of his previously written series to get a grasp on this one. Other than a few cameos and inside jokes, a reader who is unfamiliar with the series will find that they can get along just fine without any outside information.

I think that this book can be considered my personal guilty pleasure of 2016 (subject to change). Yes, the writing style is similar. Yes, the snarky comments feel much like an older Percy Jackson. However, despite all that, I just really liked and enjoyed this book, and after all, isn't that all that counts? If you are interested in Norse mythology I highly recommend this novel. I give it a four out of five.