Chase's Take On Magnus Chase

You might be wondering “Chase's Take? I thought Allison wrote these!”

Allison has been super busy lately since she started a new job on Monday, (congrats Allison!), so I gave her the idea to ask someone else to be a special guest writer for her. Unfortunately, she asked me. This is a warning: I am not a writer; I am a reader. I read everything Allison throws at me during Family Book Club, and as you have probably read in a past article, we tackled Rick Riordan's Riordanverse. I fell behind a little these past few months, but I have finally finished the last of the three book Magnus Chase series, so let’s get into my review on it.

*By the way, this is my one and only spoiler alert.*

To give you a little bit of backstory: Magnus is a homeless kid that lives on the streets of Boston. His mom is dead and he’s afraid of wolves. He died in the beginning of the first book and was brought to Valhalla by a Valkyrie named Samirah (Sam) al-Abbas. Magnus’ two besties are Hearthstone and Blitzen. No they are not reindeer, they’re an elf and a dwarf, the usual best friend types. Those are just some fun lil facts about the series.

So, there’s a big confrontation at the end of every book and in this one, The Ship of the Dead, was a Flyting, an insult competition. Magnus vs. Loki, yes, Loki the god of mischief. He’s our main opponent in this series. The flyting is very moving. Loki is tearing into Magnus and he has an epiphany that he shouldn’t insult Loki the normal way, he should show him what he’s missing. Magnus goes in a line and uplifts his friends, describing each of their strengths while emphasizing Loki’s biggest weakness, being alone. After capturing Loki, the gods let Magnus ask for anything he wants. We later find out that he and Alex get his late uncle's mansion turned into a center for the homeless youth of Boston.

Okay, on to my actual review. Rick has done an AMAZING job of representing different types of people. Magnus was homeless, Sam is Muslim, Hearthstone is deaf, and Alex identifies as trans and genderfluid, and was also homeless after being kicked out by her dad. By reading these books, I have learned so much about each of those communities, and Rick has completely changed my perspective on religion itself. But despite all that, the writing of these books was not my favorite. I felt that Rick was very repetitive with a lot of his descriptions. If I heard him describe Alex’s eyes one more time, I thought I’d throw my book against the wall. Since finishing The Ship of the Dead, I started to reread The Heroes of Olympus series, and have noticed the repetitiveness there too, so I think that’s just Riordan's style.

Now if you know me, you know I’m a huge romance fan, and this series has filled me with so much joy with all of the people I can ship. So, if you’re like me and you love love, you should read this section:

In the beginning of The Sword of Summer you meet Samirah and get PJO flashbacks, and are like, "Oh okay, so this is the first female character he meets, it must be his love interest", but no. Sam is happily engaged to Amir Fadlan and they are THE cutest couple. Now this is controversial and not cannon, but Blitz and Hearth are shipped as a gay couple, but that’s all speculation from the fandom. Alright, onto my favorite set of love interests: Magnus Chase and Alex Fierro. I can’t even say that Magnus is pan or bi because he’s just AlexFierroSexual. Magnus is full of love and adoration for her fiery spirit and unapologetic attitude. He says their first kiss was the best thing to ever happen to him. And that's the best thing that's ever happened to me.

This series has done a lot for me and has given me so much perspective on the different cultures represented. I would recommend it to anybody. It's crazy that this series was only three books when I feel like it could have been so much more. Fingers crossed we will get another one following this group. When Allison, James, and I went to see Rick Riordan live to promote Trials of Apollo: The Tyrants Tomb, he did say that he had an idea on expanding their story, and we might see it in the future. I really hope so and now, I hope you do too.

Okay, so that concludes my review. I had a fun time writing for you guys and I hope you had a fun time reading. Have a nice week everyone, see you Sunday. As my sister would say, "stay nerdy and stay messy" ya weebs.