The Hammer of Thor

I did like this book more than the previous in the series - and it reads a bit less like Percy Jackson 2.0. I do like the characters, but that was really never in doubt because I generally like Riordan's characters. Even if I don't love them. But...

Look, we travel to other worlds. Other worlds that are distressingly similar to Midgard. I mean...I'm just disappointed that this is what we get. It could be anything and it's, basically, just like ours only with non-humans. I do get that a lot of the humor comes from the absurdity that ‘oh, hey, we've got an all powerful Norse god that dresses just like a frat boy' but that doesn't mean a change wouldn't be super nice. (We get things like cop cars and bowling alleys, I mean.) (And, also, the whole extended series was kind of glaringly US-centric before we added the entry to Yggdrasil in Boston. Now it's like the Greek gods and the Norse gods live practically on top of each other.)

Also, I would love to have some own voices thoughts on Alex. I've come across a handful of trans characters in fantasy/sci-fi and the one thing they all have in common is that they have shape shifting abilities. Personally, I am vaguely unsettled by this - but I really don't know if that's just a me problem, or if there's something here that isn't the best. As I said, love some own voices thoughts on that.