I'm back with another book review, today it is Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: The Ship of the Dead by Rick Riordan.
The story picks up where we left off, and I'm not really going to go into the synopsis because I don't want to give anything away but basically the characters have to fight some more gods, go on some more adventures, and learn more about themselves.
Once again, Riordan has been knocking it out of the park with the diversity in this series. What I think is most important about these books, especially because they are technically middle grade and meant for kids, is that Riordan doesn't just throw in some diverse characters and move on with the story, he engages with the character's diversity. One of the characters, Samirah, is Muslim and is observing Ramadan throughout their journey. This isn't a detail that's thrown in at the beginning of the quest and forgotten about, it is regularly brought up in natural ways throughout the book. In addition to the gender-fluid character from the previous books, we are also briefly introduced to a gender non-binary character who uses they/their pronouns. While we don't see a lot of the character, Riordan makes it a point of including them - mainly because he can.
The plotline itself is similar to that of almost all of Riordan's books, lots of action and quests. I think I'm realizing that this style of book might not be able to hold my attention as much as it used to, but I still really enjoyed learning more about Norse mythology and just going on a fun adventure. I think for younger reads, this is going to be a really important and still interesting series to pick up, but for me, I think the plot is getting a bit repetitive.
By the end of this book, I was genuinely tearing up, not necessarily because I was sad to see the series go, but mainly because of how it ends, with the Chase Place and everything, that just really brought things full circle for me and I loved that addition to the book.
Overall, I enjoyed this book and expect to see these characters in a future series!