Review: The Serpent's Shadow by Rick Riordan

He's b-a-a-ack! Despite their best efforts, Carter and Sadie Kane can't seem to keep Apophis, the chaos snake, down. Now Apophis is threatening to plunge the world into eternal darkness, and the Kanes are faced with the impossible task of having to destroy him once and for all. Unfortunately, the magicians of the House of Life are on the brink of civil war, the gods are divided, and the young initiates of Brooklyn House stand almost alone against the forces of chaos. The Kanes' only hope is an ancient spell that might turn the serpent's own shadow into a weapon, but the magic has been lost for a millennia. To find the answer they need, the Kanes must rely on the murderous ghost of a powerful magician who might be able to lead them to the serpent's shadow . . . or might lead them to their deaths in the depths of the underworld. Nothing less than the mortal world is at stake when the Kane family fulfills its destiny in this thrilling conclusion to the Kane Chronicles.

My Review:

Over the past week, I read The Serpent's Shadow, the conclusion to the Kane Chronicles trilogy.  This book did a great job wrapping up the plot - defeating the bad guy, and tying up the romantic threads of the story.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD

The characters in this book are all well-written.  Carter and Sadie occasionally tease each other like they always do, but it is clear that they care about each other.  Neither of them would be okay if they lost their sibling.  They both are brave characters who face many hard things in the both.  They want to keep Apophis from causing the end of the world.  They also want to save their mom's soul.  They encounter many characters in this book, including an interesting ghost named Setne, who was an evil magician when he was alive.

The romantic elements of this book are tied up well.  Carter likes Zia, since he had fallen for her shabti in the first book.  As this book continues, it becomes clear that she returns his feelings.  There are some great moments between the two while they are in some pretty dangerous situations.  Sadie has feelings for both Walt and Anubis, and she doesn't know what to do about that.  On top of that, Walt is dying, and Anubis is off-limits since he is a god.  I'm not going to give this away, but there is a very interesting resolution to this love triangle.

The mythological elements are handled well.  The book does a good job of explaining how destroying the shadow of Apophis will destroy Apophis.  Many Egyptian gods are included in this book, some of them being Horus, Isis, Osiris, Anubis, Ra, Bes, Bast, Tawaret, and more.  All these gods are great characters.  Usually what they're the god of is played with to make things funnier.  Bast is the goddess of cats, and she is very catlike.  All the gods and goddesses are quite interesting.

If you like mythology, read this book.  Make sure you read the first two in the series first, though.

Katie