The Hammer of Thor by Rick Riordan

The Hammer of Thor Reviews

• 
  Christine Riccio

  I finished it I LOVED IT OTIS IS MY FAV 3 Here's my full booktalk
• 
  Jayson

  A 80% | Very Good Notes Fun if uneven it runs in peaks and valleys a drag when didactic but keenly climactic fueled fire for the series finale
• 
  Virginia Ronan ♥ Herondale ♥

  ”Just my luck Grimwolf was happy to turn his attention to me When it comes to drawing aggro from ancient monsters I’ve got the golden touch”No kidding Haha I won’t even bother to try to make a list of the many ancient monsters Magnus pissed off in this book Suffice it to say it were many lol For some reason the gods seem to like him though so this is actually kind of funny and weird at the same time XDWell anyway let’s talk about the book This was such a typical Uncle Rick story and of course that immediately caused me to love every second of it I don’t know how Uncle Rick does it but he has such an amazing imagination that everything seems to make sense even though it doesn’t lol But then again I suppose that mythology is one of those things that rarely makes any sense and just the idea to use it as a basis for amazing fantasy books is actually than just brilliant ; Heimdall laughed “You have no idea Once I butt dialled the apocalypse So embarrassing I had to text everybody on my contact list like False alarm A lot of gods came running anyway I made this GIF of them charging up the Bifrost and then realizing there was no battle Priceless”There I said it Uncle Rick you’re brilliant XD You’re allowed to blush now if that’s your kind of thing ; PAnd speaking of things Another “thing” that’s always nice about Riordan’s books is that they are not only fast paced but have an amazing cast of diverse and multi layered characters They are certainly not your typical dwarf or elf and they all have very interesting and difficult background stories This time around we found out about Hearth’s past and Sam’s life and to say those two sub plots were instructive would be than just an understatement Poor Sam had to go through a lot in this book and even though it must have been tough she still managed to deal with it somehow Still if she doesn’t start to rebel against her father soon all her awesome and faithful friends won’t be able to save her She has to want this change otherwise it won’t work so I really hope that she’ll take heart and decide to get help from Alex ”She was betrothed to Amir She loved the guy I would raise an army of einherjar magic elves and well dressed dwarves and burn down Jotunheim before I let them coerce my friend”And after mentioning Alex for the first time I can finally go into gushing mode I LOVE ALEX FIERRO 333 ”What did you mean earlier?” I asked “When you said –““Call me she? I’m gender fluid and transgender idiot Look it up if you need to but it’s not my job to educate –“Thank you Uncle Rick Thank you for introducing us to a gender fluid character Alex is soo damn awesome I can’t even I love herhis character and I’ll defend herhim with my life if necessary Shehe is precious and must be protected at all costsGosh Uncle Rick I could kiss you for inventing Alex If you want to collect that kiss you’ll have to come to Austria though lol Well and if you’re already at it it wouldn’t hurt if you’d bring a signed copy of your book as well Just saying ; P ”My pronouns are he and him” Alex confirmed “And you can stop staring”“I wasn’t ” I caught myself Arguing would’ve been pointlessAlso I love the idea that Alex might end up being Magnus love interest I mean it’s pretty obvious that he likes herhim All that blushing and feeling warm and fuzzy whenever shehe is around is enough reason to expect a ship to sail And no I’m not talking about “The Ship of the Dead” even though I’m pretty certain that we can expect THAT ship to sail as well lol Better don’t think about it Dead peoples nails Ewww shuddersNope I’d rather like Alex’s and Magnus’ ship to sail Thank you very much XDAll told “The Hammer of Thor” was another amazing adventure and I can’t wait to read the final book of this trilogy Give me all those intriguing background stories suspenseful fights weird and awkward moments and an adorable ship to sail 3I want it all ;
• 
  P

  “Otis I saidShhh he said I'm incognito Call meOtisI'm not sure that's how incognito works but okay The Hammer of Thor is the second book of the series The book starts off with the uest which is about Magnus finding Thor's hammer He has to fight against the giants his uncle and LOKI BIG BAD LOKI AWWWW It looks promising right ? And Alex is kinda kickass in this book I liked her character but not that much Heart and Blitz are also my favorite characters too I have lost count of the moments when I laughed and cried over themSo why didn't I give this book five stars ?Rick Riordan has done many things in these last ten years or so The things that made me a fan of him was his humor and wonderful idea The concept of Percy Jackson was new fresh and vivid it was easy to love that series Then comes Carter and Percy Jackson season two Honestly because I grow up or other reasons I didn't enjoy them as fully as possible However last year I gave the Magnus series a try and liked it a lot after that I had had high expectations for this second book I read it with twinkling stars in my heart And then nothing I felt nothing after I finished this book Although The Sword of Summer fired me up with its spectacular ending The Hammer of Thor was another predicament “Mjolnir is always getting misplaced I swear Thor needs to have that hammer duct taped to his face” Rick recycled his plot He polished the materials of his previous Percy books and mixed them up to be the new book showing before your eyes right now The whole story was predictable I'd known since the begining thatview spoiler Loki is to be released from his confinement hide spoiler
• 
  C.G. Drews

  I mean OBVIOUSLY I LOVED IT It's a Riordan book What other emotions is a reader to have except 40% laughing 40% fangirling and 20% thinking about falafel??? There is so much falafel appreciation here by the way It's truly inspirational ANYWAY I definitely thought this was another exciting and captivating instalment although still like the first bookI think it got a bit rambly and I loved the newly introduced characters and I loved how whacky all the gods were And can we take a moment to just appreciate HOW HILARIOUS THESE BOOKS ARE??? I LAUGH I LAUGH AND LAUGHAhemSo firstly I have to yell about the characters There's just so much diversity here that it's glorious Plus all the secondary characters are enormously interesting and complex with a good dollop of TRAGIC 3 Magnus of course remains a top favouritealthough at times this might seem weird to say he nearly felt like a secondary character in this story? It was honestly about Loki's children and Magnus is child of Frey soYEAH But he has tons of sassy uips he's such a sarcastic dork and he gets a terrible haircut So lovely Sam is still AWESOME although totally stubborn which gets them into a bit of puddles Also I think it's adorable how in love she is with her betrothed Muslim boy Amir And I'm still so insanely impressed there's no romance between her and Magus YAAAASI also loved the introduction of Alex Fierrobut I was worried for a bit Alex comes in really rude and snipy and gah I was just worried? BUT THEN ALEX ENDS UP BEING COMPLETELY AWESOME AND I LOVE ALEX Also Alex is gender fluid but goes by heshe pronouns depending on the day And like I hope this is okay to say but I really appreciated the open and blunt discussions on gender fluidity I think that'd be really helpful for kids who have uestions or maybe are discovering things about their sexualityidentity themselves to be able to just read how Alex experiences their gender fluidity OUTRIGHT without people being angry all the time at discussing it Also Alex is a shape shifting child of Loki so like awesome is just in the top percentiles hereSORRY I HAVE A SLIGHT SOFT SPOT FOR LOKI EVEN THOUGH HE'S EVIL HERE BUT HE'S ALSO TOM HIDDLESTON SO YEAHI love the SamMagnusAlex trio And of course we won't forget Hearth and Blitz the trusty sidekicks The dynamics banter and adventures surrounding them were awesomeAlso no romance? wOOO I have a feeling it'll be MagnusAlex eventually? Magnus has done a lot of staring and kind of dropped his brain when he saw Alex in a really nice dress SO I predictbut so far I would still say No romance for this bookAnd I appreciate all the pop culture references too IT'S HILARIOUS Although the book will be seriously dated in 10 years but whatever When gods are taking selfies and watching Netflix I'm just going to be over here enjoying myself okay?As for the actual plot? It was like 80% awesome and 20% this is kind of a needless side tour and why are we doing this get to the point mate #awkward The uests in this case to find Thor's hammer are always ramblybut sometimes I just want to CUT TO THE CHASE hahhahhahaa get it?? Magnus Chase?? HAHAH Yeah I'll shut up instead of having a bowling competition with some giants What can I say I'm impatientBut we still met hilarious ludicrous gods Including about Thor who's addicted to Netflix and the guy who guards the bridge I'm sorryNorse spelling me dead being super into selfies OH and we get of Hearth's backstory and it's super tragic POOR ELFALL IN ALL It was a fabulously awesome hilarious and engaging story I kept getting interrupted every time I sat down to read and YEAH I'M GONNA START CHUCKING HAMMERS IN A SECOND TOO I weep 2 tears for the rambly plot and shout 8 hurrahs for how much I snickered And then I'll just go pet the cover because the font is slightly raised and shiny and I'm in love with it Book dragon yo UOTES Where have you been the last month and a half?Her shoulders tightened My workload this semester has been killing me I'm tutoring kids after school Then as you might remember there's my part time job reaping souls of the dead and running top secret mission for OdinYou kids today and your busy schedulesWhy doesn't Thor go check this barrow himself? I asked Waitlet me guess He doesn't want to draw attention Or he wants us to have a chance to be heroes Or it's hard work and he has some shows to catch up onTo be fair Otis said the new season of Jessica Jones did just start streamingI flung him overhead Jack spiralled out of view flying after the goat killer while singing his own version of Shake It Off I have never been able to convince him that the line isn't cheese graters gonna grate grate grate grate grateWhere's the gold? I demanded Don't make me unleash my sword's playlistEtiuette tip if you're looking for the right time to leave a party when the host yells No one leaves here alive that's your cueYour horn is a phone? Amir askedI think technically it's a phablet Heimdall said But yes this is Gjallar the Horn andor Phablet of Doomsday I blow this baby once the gods know there's trouble in Asgard and they come running I blow it twice then it's Ragnarok baby He seemed delighted by the idea that he could signal the start of the final battle that destroyed the Nine Worlds Most of the time I just use it for photos and texting and whatnotThat's not scary at all Alex saidHeimdall laughed You have no idea Once I butt dialled the apocalypse So embarrassing I had to text everybody on my contact lists like False alarm A lot of gods came running anyway I made this GIF of them charging up the Bifrost and then realising there was no battle Priceless
• 
  Simona B

  At this point most people would have thrown themselves down on the ground and given up hope And by most people I mean me•I know that I have already raved plenty about how much I love this author and his characters but Magnus Chase defies all standards of cutie pie ness and adorable ness and funny ness and whatnot You just cannot not love the kid And guess what OBVIOUS FACT ALERT cit? I love him •So now that we got the Obvious Fact out of the way I should start listing all the reasons why if you love Riordan and his previous books you'll love this one too and then those why if you have never read anything of his you'll love it anyway But I won't partly because many of them already are in my review of The Sword of Summer first book in The Gods of Asgard series and partly because they can be or less summed up in this sort of epiphany I had right after finishing this book I think that when Riordan writes a new book the world becomes a little better place His books are fun and hilarious They are also utterly brilliant and full of mythology yup you might not have figured it out but that is kind of the point which is cool and instructive for the children and a real treat for the mythologyhistorythis kind of stuff freaks and I know it first hand now because I'm currently studying for a Germanic philology course and being able to being up on all the gazillion references? Priceless Plus while they entertain you and teach you all this great stuff they also manage to tackle some sensitive and topical issue on the side Impossible you say? People meet Alex FierroI’m gender fluid and transgender idiot•And not only is Alex a great character as she as said Alex is gender fluid but since in most of the scenes she appears as a female I'll use this pronoun for convenience and because she made it clear that she doesn't do they represents diversity in such an unusual and compelling and absolutely perfect way she is also likeable relatable kick ass and a million shades of splendid I also appreciated how the magical element intervenes in Alex's characterization she's a shape shifter so she can be male one minute and female the next Brilliant And she and Magnus actually talk about what it means for her to be gender fluid and how she feels about it I think this is all the perfect and astonishing when you consider that The Hammer of Thor is the second instalment in a middle grade series We need writers like Rick RiordanPlus I ship Alex and Magnus so hard you can't imagine•And now yes a couple of uotes for you because I'm not that cold hearted “The dragon’s mouth opened wide revealing several extra rows of teeth—just in case the outer row of teeth didn’t kill me dead enough” “Hearth finger spelled K E N N I N G“What’s that?” I askedSamirah edged a little closer to the inscription “A kenning is a Viking nickname”“You mean like Hey Kenning How’s it going?”My professor would have killed you so much Magnus “Dagfinn looked at me apologetically “It's a Thing thing You wouldn’t understand” “ Stop that I told my brain Also the wedding is tomorrow said my brain Get out of my headMy brain refused to get out of my head Inconsiderate brain” “I think it's time you met Percy” And that must TOTALLY happen in the next book Thumbs up for the incoming crossover happy dancePRE READINGSo book this is what I want from youOh gods sorry wrong gifmpfff okay that's funny but noYes Yes that's what I want Evil Loki reigns
• 
  April

  YAAASSSSS Magnus Chase is going to meet Percy Jackson My two faves
• 
  ambsreads

  “Otis and his brother Marvin pulled the god’s chariot They also provided Thor with a never ending supply of goat meat Each night Thor killed and ate them for dinner Each morning Thor resurrected them This is why you should go to college kids—so when you grow up you do not have to take a job as a magical goat Rick Riordan's books are always some of my favourite books to read so Magnus Chase and the Hammer of Thor is no exception That being said it was even better than the first book The Magnus Chase series feels different from Rick Riordan's other books as well I'm not sure if it's because Norse mythology is a whole lot intense or because he uses a series of diverse characters but it is beyond enjoyable to read This book got so good that I stopped taking notes and recording uotes for my review because I had been excitedly telling people about this series and running around screaming Accurate representation of meNow what else can I say?I don't even know what to say because I just dove straight into this book and if you have read the first one it may be the best plan of attack Diversity I will talk about diversity Now I noticed the other month when I joined Twitter for a short period of time people wanted diverse representations in YA fiction The Hammer of Thor has this diversity How? You may ask Well first we have Samirah al Abbas who is a Muslim character in the Norse world but also believes fully in Allah Sam's religion plays a large part in this series with her prayers even being mentioned throughout this book I studied Islam religion for two years in high school so it is interesting to be able to use information I learnt in school to help me understand the book further However Sam was in the first book so she isn't that big of a shock The big shock of this book is Rick Riordan introducing the first gender fluid character in his books Alex Fierro I can say so much about Alex but they were honestly my favourite character throughout this book The fact that the pronouns were instantly taken on whether Alex wanted to be called shehe was amazing I just loved it Now I should probably talk about the plot and the world building Everything in this book is just perfect The fact that we have Magnus' witty sense of humour and other characters The fact that Magnus makes mistakes and screams in situations The fact that Magnus sucks at sword fighting Now that is just Magnus The rest of the characters are developed so much further in this book This book doesn't suffer from second book syndromeThe plot was completely action packed I'm not sure there was a page where something wasn't happening or if there was it was a chapter filled with humour that had me laughing incredibly loudly I mean the way that Rick winds his words together because Magnus is in fact Annabeth's cousin is beautiful “I’d even had a mind melting conversation with my cousin Annabeth about the Greek gods who hung out in New York and made her life difficult Apparently North America was lousy with ancient gods We had a full blown infestation I'm not even sure what else to say this whole review is a complete mess I am a mess I love this series so much I think the only thing that could have made this book better if our Thor was like this You can't live in my household where my mum is so obsessed with ThorChris Hemsworth that our dog got named Thor without loving the man too Overall this book is a masterpiece and is definitely on my favourites of 2016 list
• 
  Natalie Monroe

  Nice Natalie I don't like that we're always here these days with Riordan's booksCynical Natalie Maybe if he wrote uality material we wouldn't be here Exhibit A the plot Hello uest with sidekicks narrative 650Nice Natalie Oh come on you liked the plot You laughed a bunch of timesCynical Natalie I laugh at Vines but that doesn't mean they deserve an Oscar What about Hearthstone's dad? view spoilerThey basically left him there half mad and terrorizing his guests hide spoiler
• 
  Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽

  Thor's lost his dang hammer again Loki is scheming and causing trouble again 35 stars Final review first posted on Fantasy LiteratureThe god Thor has lost his hammer again but this time it’s even worse the giant Thrym has gotten hold of it and has hidden it away where no one else can reach it If the hammer isn’t returned to Thor uickly enemies of Asgard will take advantage of their weakness and attack triggering Ragnarok the battle at the end of the world and bringing massive death and destruction in the Nine WorldsLoki the trickster who has been chained up by the other gods as punishment for his misdeeds visits Magnus Chase in a dream Loki gets around pretty well in dreamland He tells Magnus that he’s worked out a deal to get Thor’s hammer back all Magnus has to do is bring Thrym a certain bride for a wedding in five days along with the bride price and Thrym will give back the hammer as his wedding giftThere are just a few problems with this plan The intended bride is the Valkyrie Samirah Magnus’ friend and Loki’s daughter who is already engaged to another man and by the way has absolutely no interest in marrying a giant The bride price that Magnus is supposed to bring to the giant is the magical Skofnung Sword hidden in a mummified Danish king’s tomb and protected by zombie Viking guards And certainly not least is the fact that Loki certainly has a scheme his own devious reason for brokering this deal if only Magnus could figure out what it is But Magnus doesn’t see any choice but to go along with the plan at least for now Luckily he has his friends Samirah Blitzen the fashion forward dwarf and the elf Hearthstone to help him as well as a new acuaintance Alex Fierro the latest addition to the halls of Valhalla The Hammer of Thor 2016 doesn’t diverge from Rick Riordan’s formula of mythological gods and smart aleck half blood children who are sent off on various uests and adventures in each book but Riordan excels at telling a fast paced humorous adventure Magnus’ talkative sword Sumarbrander the Sword of Summer fondly known as “Jack” is back in full force chatting with Magnus flying through the air to fight enemies all by himself and ill advisedly falling in love with the lovely and deadly Skofnung Sword Samirah and Hearthstone both become fully fleshed out characters as we get to know about their lives and backgrounds particularly when we visit Hearthstone’s family home in Alfheim Thor’s hammer strikes me as a bit of a MacGuffin an object whose primary function is to advance the plot and entertaining as it was I’m not certain the overarching plot of this series was advanced much in this middle book While the plot is amusing and we explore a few of the Nine Worlds the entire book struck me as a rather elaborate way to set up just one particular event that occurs toward the endThe most notable difference from his earlier books is that Riordan is making an appreciable effort to include diverse characters particularly in the MAGNUS CHASE AND THE GODS OF ASGARD series Magnus is a formerly homeless teen Hearthstone the elf is deaf and Magnus’s closest companion is Samirah a devout Muslim Now in The Hammer of Thor we meet the gender fluid Alex whose self identification as either male or female can change from day to day Like Samirah Alex is a child of the trickster god Loki who in the traditional Norse legends was able to change his sex he often disguised himself as a woman So it does make sense for Loki to have a gender fluid child There’s a slightly clunky lecturing tone to Magnus’ discussions with Alex about respecting Alex’s current gender choice and calling Alex by the gender heshe currently identifies as but overall this somewhat touchy subject is handled sensitively and in a way that most will consider appropriate for its intended age group of readersThe MAGNUS CHASE AND THE GODS OF ASGARD series is generally light hearted and humorous though it does include a fair amount of violence and mayhem in a nod to the warlike Viking culture that inspires this series Most of the time the violence is played for comic effect so it’s not likely to traumatize any but the most sensitive readers The Hammer of Thor is a solid story; it might not appeal to readers who are tired of Riordan’s formula but it will almost certainly please the Riordan fan in your house I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a review Thank you