This short story is a cross between the Percy Jackson books and The Kane Chronicles, two series that I really enjoy! Even though I don’t love all the Percy Jackson books, I did love the Kane Chronicles when I read them in middle school. One day I was in the library and I saw Red Pyramid and thought it was a really good book when I read it. I listened to the audiobooks for the next two books as I went to sleep at night, it was one of the most fun ways to go to sleep. The way the book occupied my mind so much was just enough for me to relax and actually rest. I had read some of the PJO books before, and had watched the movie, but I decided to finish the PJO series last year in order to get through the Heroes of Olympus series. That’s when I realized I didn’t love the PJO series that much, even though I did love the characters. Somewhere along that line, I read the first book of this crossover series, and then when I saw this was available in my digital library recently, I decided to finish it.
Now, what does any of that backstory have to do with my review of this book? Yes, it does explain how I got to reading this book. It explains the many years of my life where I have read the Percy Jackson series. But why would you care about all of that? You are hear to read my review of this specific short story. You are here to read about Sadie and Annabeth, two amazing female characters from two different series meeting for the first time! WELL, by Riordan’s logic, I NEEDED to give you all of that information before I get into the meat of the review.
This book is entirely ruined by the amount of time Sadie and Annabeth spend relaxing and reminiscing about the different things that have happened throughout both of their lives and in their novels up to this point.
I highly doubt anyone reading this specific crossover would know absolutely nothing about either character. And even if they did know nothing, I doubt they would want each character’s entire 3-5 book backstory in the middle of this short novella! It just makes NO sense why this book was written this way.
At one point, it just looked like the girls were sitting outside a building where they had a battle, explaining each other’s histories. I felt like they should have spent as little time as possible giving each other the info necessary to fight their common enemy, and then set up a chat at the Brooklyn House or something to discuss their pasts. They would have still gotten to know one another, but in a less forced way. I feel like it would have also encouraged the fans of each series to read the other more than a Sparknotes summary of the previous books would.
The action scenes of this book were a perfect mix of Egyptian and Greek mythology and kept me reading. I loved how Sadie would use her magic as Annabeth had her other items such as her cap to rely on. This was done very well, and saved the rest of the book for me. I also liked Sadie’s and Annabeth’s friendship. I would hope that this would cross over into future books in the Percy Jackson or Kane Chronicles universe, such as Magnus Chase or Apollo Trials, but I’m not sure since I haven’t read those yet!
I do NOT remember the Son of Sobek being written this way, but I don’t have a review on my site to go back to about it so I can’t tell. I already checked out book 3 so I am going to finish and review that one, but I think I’m done with crossovers after that. So disappointing!
Overall Rating: 2 out of 5 books
[…] wasn’t sure how I would like this novel after disliking the Annabeth/Sadie novel that came before this one. To my surprise, this book was what the previous book should have […]