July 26, 2016

Review of Reawakened by Colleen Houck


Release Date: August 11, 2015
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Page Count: 400
Format: Softcover
Genre: YA
When seventeen-year-old Lilliana Young enters the Metropolitan Museum of Art one morning during spring break, the last thing she expects to find is a live Egyptian prince with godlike powers, who has been reawakened after a thousand years of mummification.
And she really can't imagine being chosen to aid him in an epic quest that will lead them across the globe to find his brothers and complete a grand ceremony that will save mankind.
But fate has taken hold of Lily, and she, along with her sun prince, Amon, must travel to the Valley of the Kings, raise his brothers, and stop an evil, shape-shifting god named Seth from taking over the world.
From New York Times bestselling author Colleen Houck comes an epic adventure about two star-crossed teens who must battle mythical forces and ancient curses on a journey with more twists and turns than the Nile itself. 

Reawakened is a book that I've seen many times but never read (due to the never ending book tbr I have), however that all changed when I was invited to participate in the blog tour for its sequel. I picked up a copy of Reawakened and read it while waiting for the tour, it ended up being an interesting mythological book that I thoroughly enjoyed. 

The weakest part of this book was the world-building and settings (anyone who reads my reviews knows how much I value those two aspects) but that can be partially forgiven since Reawakened isn't a full on fantasy book. The book contained scenes from NYC, modern Egypt, and ancient Egypt; ancient Egypt obviously ended up being my favorite part. The modern settings were clearly written but its not like fantasy books where you can make up scenes as you wish and furnish them, here you have to work with existing things. However, ancient Egypt seems very promising in the world-building department and exploring it more could add another element to an already excellent book.

As you can imagine, for Reawakened I put more importance on the characters over the settings since they were the better of the two. Lily and Amon from the start were kind of like opposites in personality but as time passed we got to see their relationship change and progress. The others characters were well-written as well but I just couldn't get as interested into them as I did with Amon and Lily. The only complaint I have about the characters would be the gods, they just seem too weak to be gods. All they do is minor tasks and otherwise stay behind scenes, how can the "good" ones stay idly by as Seth tries to destroy the world? Some more information into them along with more scenes set in ancient Egypt (or the other times when the brothers woke up) would be immensely interesting. While the characters department could use a few fixes, for the most part Colleen Houck delivers characters intriguing enough to get you interested and hooked on.

Reawakened ended on a confusing cliffhanger which makes the wait for the sequel much harder, however thanks to the blog tour I mentioned I have a copy of it and will be posting a review soon. Touching up on the characters and adding some background information will push an already wonderful book to even higher heights. Reawakened would be perfect for fans of mythology related books such as The Kane Chronicles and Percy Jackson books.


4.5/5 - Good Book


1 comment:

  1. This one sounds interesting! I love PJO but didn't really enjoy Kane Chronicles. I also have been seeing this series everywhere, but know nothing about it :D I also wonder why Gods in most books tend to sit idly and waits for the mortal to do the business for them, rather than defeat the evil themselves? It would be really cool to see the powers of the gods more on display.

    Tasya // The Literary Huntress

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