I've read and reviewed each of the books collected here separately, so this is basically just for my own records. The truth is I've struggled with this series, and that's reflected in the stars I gave them. The first book got three stars, the second two and a half stars, and the third two stars. Together that averages out to two and a half, which rounds up to three - I round up in my Goodreads reviews, but honestly this was a case where if I'd rounded down it wouldn't have been completely dishonest. It's been a downward slide.

Look, there are genuinely likeable things about this series. I enjoy the two protagonists and their sibling relationship. I really enjoy the focus on Egyptian mythology. I don't know a lot about it, and this has exposed me to new things, so good. But the books strike me, consistently, as far longer than they need to be and in each case it's taken me weeks to make my way through each volume, because there's so much extraneous stuff bloating out the story, and I'm just not interested. I am especially not interested in pre-teen love triangles, or the romantic woes of either of these kids if I'm being honest. Furthermore the tone just seems so flippant that it undercuts, for me, any sense of real danger. Which, I mean, it's a book for kids. Riordan is clearly not out to write doom and gloom that gives his child readers nightmares, and good for him. He's obviously written a very successful children's series... I'm just not sure that it catches my adult attention. Nonetheless, I've given it a go, and I'll probably wander back to the Percy Jackson series sometime in the future, because I've read a couple of those before and liked them a little better, I think.