Yeah… so it’s been a few months since I last made a review… and you all probably think I’m dead by now… but I’m not… so you’ll have to deal with me for a little bit longer… sorry about that. So I was trying to through some excuses in my head, trying to figure out a way where I don’t sound like a total jerk about not updating… but then I came up with nothing. So yeah, I’m a total jerk. I apologize for my jerkiness. Well, here we are now almost at the start of 2016, which I will most definitely be miswriting on school papers, and I thought “My god, what are you doing with your life? You’ve been on a book slump for WAY too long! GET YOURSELF TOGETHER!”. So during school break I FINALLY picked up Magnus Chase again which I have been putting off for WAY too long. Plus I haven’t watched the season finale of Once Upon a Time yet (which I will watch right after I write this) so I needed a way to keep me away from spoilers. I KNOW, I KNOW, I NEED TO WATCH THE FINALE! I’M SORRY! I’LL WATCH IT SOON OKAY? And I’m pretty sure that’s all I have to say for now… So let’s get onto fangirling over Magnus Chase shall we?
Alright first things first, if you have not read or attempted to read Magnus Chase yet… WHAT ARE YOU DOING? IT’S BEEN MONTHS SINCE IT CAME OUT! YOU’RE EVEN WORSE THAN ME! GET YOURSELF TOGETHER! No offense Carmel…
- Percy Jackson References
- Every time that Rick subtly or not subtly made PJO and HoO references I DIED. In the very beginning of the book when Magnus sees Annabeth and his uncle Frederick walking through the streets looking for him all I could think was “YOU IDIOT WHAT ARE YOU DOING? GO TALK TO THEM! OH MY GODS, IT’S ANNABETH!” . And when it’s mentioned that she had a an orange colored T-Shirt sticking out from underneath her jacket, oh gods. It was such a small detail, and Annabeth always wears a Camp Half-Blood T-Shirt, but I don’t know. It kind of feels like Rick took Annabeth from a setting that we’re used to seeing her in and put her in a place where not used too, yet she still has something that we’re so used to which is the Camp Half-Blood T-Shirt. It just felt like a nice warm memory, or something like that.
- While I’m talking about the Annabeth scene, let’s talk about the other ones too. So this one is when she and Magnus meet at the funeral home. It was nice to hear from Annabeth again, but I didn’t feel particularly… how do I explain this… I didn’t feel the need to see what was going on with Annabeth, like I’m on this adventure with Magnus and seeing her felt kind of unnecessary. DOn’t get me wrong though, I mean I love Annabeth and I would follow her through Tartarus and back (which I’ve kind of already done) but it just seemed like something that wasn’t needed. But, when she said that there was a safe place for Magnus to go to ‘CAMP HALF-BLOOD OH MY GODS’ rang through my head and it was like ‘ah, memories’.
- And this brings us to the last scene, when Annabeth and Magnus were together spreading the ashes through Blue Woods and they were arguing about who had the craziest life, then they made that bet, well let’s just say I LAUGHED SO HARD. I think it’s absolutely hilarious that they’re both going through these crazy things and they probably just think that the other just has minor issues AHAHAHAHAHHA. And judging from the chapter title “I Lose A Bet” I’m pretty sure that we can say Annabeth won. Which I could totally see, I mean Annabeth has had a lot more years of havoc then magnus has had. Jeez, I thought my family could be interesting sometimes, but the Chase family is an absolutely crazy one. I mean out of the three kids, one hooked up with a greek goddess, another with a norse god, and one is in this tangled mess with an evil god. Oh gods, they must have a great time at family story nights
- Okay, so my two favorite references to PJO and HoO would be the chapter title “Hearth Passes Out Even More Than Jason Grace (Though I have No Idea Who That Is)” and when Jack the sword says, “A pen sword. That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard”. HAHAHHAHAHHAHAHA RICK YOU KILL MEEEEEEE.
- Jack The Sword
- Okay people, we have a talking sword. I repeat we have a talking sword. How epic is that! So being able to fight people without anyone’s erm… without anyone’s… direction… yeah, let’s go with that, being able to fight without anyone’s direction is so cool! You go Jack! The only thing that I don’t really like about this is that Magnus kind of gets out of all of his fights and lets Jack do all the work. Yeah, I know that his dad was more about spring and summer than fighting, but I would’ve liked to see Magnus fight for himself. But you know, whatever. Anyways, Jack has this amazing personality that is absolutely hilarious and sarcastic for a lot of the time and I just love it. This actually makes me wonder, what would Riptide act like if he could talk? By the way, sorry for mentioning PJO and HoO a lot, I really can’t help myself… but seriously, what would Riptide be like? I can imagine him with a deep voice and be all business most of the time but can’t help but laugh and smile at Percy sometimes. Yeah, that’s what I think. What about you guys?
- Sam
- I love how Rick keeps including people from all backgrounds and heritages into his books. I actually can’t remember reading a book with a muslim girl when she’s not the main character, so that was nice. I love how she has dreams about flying and being a pilot grows up, but I can’t help but think how it’ll probably be more difficult for her to find a job because she’s muslim. And that just sucks because the world is just mean and unfair sometimes, more than sometimes actually. But Sam is great, I love her. She’s heroic, fun, and knows how to kick butt.
- Loveeeeee
- So Sam has an arranged marriage with Amir, and I actually don’t have a problem with that. Amir seems like a nice guy, and I think it’s adorable when Sam blushes and gets all red in the face when she’s around him. But the only thing is, who do I ship Magnus with? I mean I don’t really have any other options here. Am I supposed to leave him like a loner? I don’t know… What do you guys think?
- Hearth and Blitz
- They are some quite unique characters. Where else are you going to find a death elf that learns magic and a normal (but still on the shorter side) sized elf that loves fashion? Shoot me if you know another place. I love what they bring to the story, and their backgrounds and pasts are just tragic. There’s really not any characters that I have anything bad to say about honestly.
- The Gods and Goddess’
- Freya is basically Aphrodite, but I guess she doesn’t ship people more, so I guess this is an improvement?
- I honestly still have a hard time picturing Thor as described in the book. Everytime I see his name, I can’t help but to think of Chris Hemsworth *sighs*. Speaking of Thor, HOW DOES ONE SIMPLY LOSE HIS HAMMER. I mean I get that it was stolen, but how does that happen if he has it with him all the time and he’s the only one that can pick it up? But, aside from that, Thor actually seems like a good guy. I thought that he would act more like Zues or something like that, but he genuinely cares for us mortals. I’m touched. However messed up the world is, at least I know Thor is there trying to prevent giants from destroying us. Also, I LOVE HOW HE’S ADDICTED TO TV SHOWS! I find it absolutely hilarious! And whenever he mentions a show that I love I can’t help but scream. When he mentioned Arrow (which I just finished season 3 of) I died. And when he mentioned Daryl from The Walking Dead, the first thing I did was text Carmel (because Daryl is her uncle and fav). I feel like I’m personally attached to Thor because of how much we love and are addicted to our TV shows.
Okay so overall, I thought it was a great book. I honestly love Rick Riordan, I feel like nothing he writes could possibly disappoint me (besides Blood of Olympus, but it’s going to be okay because he’s writing The Trials of Apollo! I’m going to write down my expectations for the book soon… I hope). But I did feel like everything in the book was kind of compact. Like everything kept happening one thing after the other and that there was no breathing room. But I guess that kept it fast pace and kept encouraging me to keep reading. For my overall score of the book, I’d say 90%. It was a really good book, but it definitely wasn’t my favorite. But still, it was a really good book.