Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson series, is probably one of my favourite authors. In the Percy series he did such a good job of weaving together educational facts, humour, plot, and good characters.

And he's done it again with The Red Pyramid.

The story starts off with Carter Kane, a 14 year old boy who's had to travel the world, living out of a suitcase, with his ever since his mother died six years ago. He's always felt jealous of his sister, Sadie, who gets to live with their grandparents in London and have a normal life, going to school and making friends.

The ending had just the right amount of tying up lose strings, while leaving things open ended, so that you felt you'd read a complete story

Sadie, of course, has always felt jealous of Carter who gets to spend so much time with their Dad.

The siblings, who are basically strangers, have to band together after their Dad blows up an important Egypt artifact and releases five dangerous Egyptian gods.

Rick does so many things right in this book. There's action, adventure, a plethora of fun characters, and a lot of cool Egyptian mythology. And, in the same style as the Percy Jackson books, Rick combines actual history and mythology with a fantastic plot, making the books entertaining and educational.

The book switches between Carter and Sadie as narrators, which helped keep the book fresh, and with a female narrator widened the prospective audience. Both characters are intelligent but still children and do stupid things, and reason things out the way people their age would. And the book does a good job of leaving the kids on their own realistically. The adults don't just abandon them but they were taken out of the equation in ways that weren't too devastating to the young heroes.

The ending had a good balance of tying up lose ends while still leaving things open so that the reader felt they'd read a complete story but was still knew there was more to come.

The Red Pyramid was fun, fast-paced, and a terrific read. I'm very eager for more in this series.

Now, I read a fair number of books. I've been known to read upwards of three in one day. So, when I say this is the best book I've read this year believe me when I say it had competition. And it blew that competition out of the water.

Finnikin of the Rock is a political fantasy in a style all its own. It is about a country that in five terrible days was torn asunder in murder, intrigue, and magic. It is a story of refugees trying to find their way home. And it is a story of a young man and a young woman, determined to save their people and how their ideas in how to do so, clash.

I don't even know where to begin on describing what I loved about this book. The main characters, Finnikin and Evanjelin are so wonderfully written. Finnikin is such a good balance of determined, indecisive, strong, weak, brooding, smart, funny...I could go on. He has such a passion for his homeland and his people but has lost faith in ever returning home. But he still has this part of him that is reluctant. A part that is afraid of returning home, of discovering who he is as the path back to their homeland threatens to make him more than he ever wanted to be.

Young adult literature likes to use the words "strong female lead" to describe their leading ladies. I never quite understood the phrase until reading this book. Most of the main characters in this book are male. They're all tough warrior types who have been forced to lead hard lives in constant travel. Then Evanjelin joins their group and,without saying a word, takes over their plans, and proves to them that she has a better understanding of what is going on. Her tenacity and strength are really what made this book for me. From the very beginning she knew exactly what she wanted and how to get it.

These two characters play off each other so well. Watching them grow through the story, and seeing the doubts they had and the regrets they harbored was like watching two real people. They jumped off the page and captured my heart and made it so it was impossible to put this book down.

They are many other fantastic characters, but when I think back on the book, it is Finnikin and Evanjelin that I remember the most. The book is about their journey and their discovery of themselves and each other.

When I reached the end of the book, my greatest wish was to forget it completely so that I could go back to the beginning and read it all over again, fresh. If you can only read one book this month, or this year, make it this one. You will not regret it.

After weeks of carrying the book around in my bag and not having any chance to read it, I finally put other things aside and used every spare minute today to finish it.

This book was most entertaining, and very original. I loved the idea of killer unicorns. Before I started the book, I was envisioning sprawling battles with swords and crossbows and majestic yet terrible beasts that are ravaging the unsuspecting population.

And I was not disappointed in that regard. What I didn't expect was how honest the book was going to be about teenage girls and sex. I had completely forgotten the old myth of unicorns being attracted to virgin females, but this book takes it and runs with it. And sex itself it talked about in such an honest and real way. It feels like teenage girls talking about sex. Not an adult having teenage girls talk about sex the way she wishes they would.

And, as much as I loved the battles and the mystery, what I really loved was that the author was willing to have these girls talk about sex candidly. A lot of current YA novels use fantasy transformations as a metaphor for puberty* and changing into a young adult. Peterfreund instead uses the supernatural transformations as a metaphor for the pressure young people feel to have sex. And the way their world is different afterward.

At least, that was my interpretation.

The story itself is obviously very planned and thought out, with a lot of research going into it. Which I always appreciate. In this world there are four different species of unicorn. The zhi are the smallest and the one we see the most of. They are about the size of a goat and when confronted with a virginal hunter the zhi are attracted in a cute and cuddly way. The girls keep one as basically a pet and it is easy to forget that it is a meat-eating, man-killing monster.

The next bigger one is called a kirin, it's about the size of a horse. These ones are attracted to hunters in a non-cuddly way. In fact all unicorns other than the zhis are attracted to hunters to kill them. These unicorns are so dark they blend in with the night, and are almost invisible. And very deadly.

The Re'en, the second biggest, similar in size to an ox, we only see briefly and don't really know much about. The Karkadann is the biggest. Comparable to an elephant. And, well, I'm still not quite sure about the Karkadann and it's role in this world. I could explain a little more, but I don't want to ruin it.

All of the unicorns have a deadly poison in their alicorn (the horn) and all of them like to eat the flesh of humans.

Virginal descendants of Alexander the Great are brought to Rome to live in old decrepit cloisters and train to hunt these unicorns. Seriously.

What really made this book was how the author brought all these characters together, in this almost ridiculous setting, and then had them react the way modern teenagers would.

Astrid, the main character, does not want to be there. She doesn't not want to kill things. She would much rather be at home, at school, with a date to prom.

Phillipa, her cousin, doesn't really seem to get it. They are modern teenagers, modern women, after all. They can make up their own minds, do their thing. No man controls them.

Cory, the first hunter we meet besides Astrid, is almost blood thirsty in her need to kill unicorns.

More girls arrive after them and despite the growing cast of characters, each one always feels like their own person. None of the supporting cast feels flat or undeveloped or not needed.

The book had the awesome battles and violence and "girl power" I had been looking for, but what I really loved about it were the scenes when the girls were all together in a room discussing why they were still virgins. How being a virgin affected their interactions with boys.

One of the girls is nineteen and she talks about how everyone just assumes she is saving her virginity for something special. Marriage or her "one true love." When really all she wanted was someone who wanted her more than they wanted sex.

There was so much else I wanted to talk about (the animal rights side of things, having a love interest when sex is denied, the mystery, the panacea...) but I feel I've spoiled enough of it. I will briefly mention that I found some parts to be slow but as I can't remember what those parts were, I'm sure it wont affect your enjoyment of the book. They didn't affect mine.

And I will leave with my favourite line: "Every time we went out was like some complicated game. What he'd try, when he'd try it, and how I'd stop him without making him mad or doing something I didn't want to do. That's the only thing I thought about every time we were together. Not about the movie we were watching or what we were talking about. Just waiting for him to make a move. It wasn't dating; it was preparing for battle."