The Serpent's Shadow by Rick Riordan

***The following synopsis and summary contain spoilers for The Red Pyramid and The Throne of Fire.***

The giant snake of Chaos, Apophis, still threatens to take over the world despite Carter and Sadie Kane's efforts. They, along with the help of a now deceased magician, managed to buy the world some more time, but that time is quickly running out. If they want to live, the siblings must do the impossible, defeat Apophis himself. And the only way to do that is to find an ancient spell, and use the serpent's shadow against him.

Rate: 4.5 stars

This was my favourite book of the trilogy. I really loved the final battle and the way things ended. I just love Rick's books, his writing, his characters, his stories. It's all just so great! Everything was wrapped up nicely, and overall this was a great conclusion to an awesome, action-packed series!

SPOILERS AHEAD.

Did anyone else catch that Camp Half-Blood reference? We got to see Drew and Lacy, which was pretty cool! I love authors who do that sort of thing!

Anyways, let's get on with the review. I'm pretty much just going to be talking about the ending because that was the best part. First off, the final battle against Apophis was pretty epic. Action is always the best. That's one of the reasons why I don't like contemporaries. I think that all of Rick's action scenes are written pretty well. Although I enjoyed reading the last battle, I was expecting a tad bit more. I thought that defeating Apophis would be a bit more tricky.

Besides the end scene, I also liked the scene in "A Friendly Game of Hide and Seek (with Bonus Points for Painful Death!)" (I also love the chapter titles, they're hilarious!), where Walt and Sadie played a "friendly" game of hide and seek with Neith. Also, the Jelly Baby Conspiracy thing was hilarious.

Speaking of Walt and that chapter, let's talk about what happened to him in the end. So may recall that a deadly curse runs in his family, and he was dying. So naturally he hosted Anubis (well maybe that's not exactly natural). I actually suspect that Walt and Anubis would join forces. I have conflicted feelings on this topic.On the one hand, I'm glad Walt is alive and well, but on the other, isn't it a bit odd that he's basically two people in one (buy one get one free!)? I preferred Anubis and Sadie together over Walt and Sadie. Don't get me wrong, I liked Walt, but I just liked Anubis and Sadie together better. And the two-for-one-deal that is Walt (is that what we're going to call him?), wasn't exactly the same, and it was like dating two people at once. Weird right?

On the topic of hosting gods, I'd like the mention Ra/Zia. For the short time that they were one, that was a bit odd. Also, Ra is back, but he's not taking the throne? That was surprising. Instead he decided to give his place to a fifteen-year-old magician/Horus. Good for Carter and all but will he be able to take that responsibility? I also really loved that little scene at the end with Carter and Zia.

Moving on. I was glad that at the end we got Bes back. He was able to save Carter and Sadie (again), which, you know, is always handy. Plus it was great to have his character back in the story.

Overall, I was quite happy with the ending. There we no cliffhangers in the series surprisingly enough (I mean have you Heroes of Olympus?!?). And everything was wrapped up quite nicely. It was a great book to end the series.