Reawakened by Colleen Houck
Publication Date: August 11th 2015
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Genre(s): Fantasy (Mythology), Romance, Young-Adult
Series Status: The Reawakened #1
Page Count: 400
Source & Format: Bought, Paperback
Synopsis from Goodreads:
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.
Greetings! As I’m sure all of you have realised by now, I’m going to be sharing my thoughts on Reawakened by Colleen Houck for you today. No spoilers, as always, but I’m warning you, there will be some rambling! If you’re in a hurry and simply want to know the overall idea of my thoughts, feel free to skip to the ‘overall’ part at the bottom. ❤ I won’t be offended! 😛
Let’s get on with it, shall we?
Plot
This story goes through as what I’ve saw several people call the “White Savior” syndrome. I know lots of people have hated on this book because of this fact, and although this was something my mind registers, it didn’t really bother me. Sure, the main character is white and she has to help Egyptian demigods to help save the world, and yes, this is a lot like Tiger’s Curse, but that’s all I though about. I didn’t really care.
But anyway. Just wanted to put that out there. Moving on, looking at it from a critical perspective, the plot was okay. I mean, there was a bit too much info-dumping for my taste and a lot of the events felt unnecessary and weren’t memorable. I think one of the reasons the plot felt a bit weak to me because even though it had different events, the outline of it all felt very familiar (especially due to the characters), similar to the outline of Tiger’s Curse. Although I enjoyed Tiger’s Curse when I first read it (a while ago), I was hoping for more of a unique situation when it came to this novel, which wasn’t fully delivered.
From an entertainment perspective, I wasn’t a big fan of the beginning, but the pace picked up from there, and after that it was relatively easy to get swept away into the story. It was fun to read about, with all the mythology and magic, etc. I can’t say whether I liked how the mythology was portrayed, considering how a lot of it flew over my head due to the info-dumping, and I can’t vouch for whether the mythology was portrayed accurately, but I can say for sure that it was pretty entertaining to read.
Characters
“Even though I was very picky, wore only designer clothes, and has a monthly allowance bigger than what most people my age earned in a year, I was by no means a snob.”
Yep, this quote above is legit something the main character, Lilliana said. I didn’t like her. No sugar-coating here! Honestly, she didn’t bother me as much at first, but afterwards I simply couldn’t stand her—something that’s pretty unusual for me. Now, just looking at some things she said, I’m wondering how I was able to go through this novel without cringing.
Although she had potential to be a character I’d like, Lilliana’s character fell flat due to her Mary Sue qualities and inconsistency in personality. (Mary Sue, by the way, is the kind of character who is basically perfect, in our case; amazing grades, rich, a perfect good girl, who is absolutely gorgeous.)
Having said that, I’ve read enough Mary Sue-esque characters to usually be immune to the annoyances of those qualities, and be able to simply enjoy the character. What changed for this book is the fact that I’ve already seen this persona in Kelsey from Tiger’s Curse, and I simply am not in the mood to have to go through another copy of this.
In addition to that, she constantly contradicts everything she previously said, and that inconsistency really bothered me. In the very first chapter, I clearly recollect her mention that she prefers independence because of how stifling her parents can be, however time and time again she proves otherwise when she hardly shows any free will and goes along with Amon’s plans. Geez, grow a backbone and some personality, Lilliana!
Before I rant and ramble some more, let’s move on to Amon, the secondary main character. I definitely ended up liking him a lot more than Lilliana, although this wasn’t the case at first. I’m pretty used to reading about stalker-ish guys (I’ve read several books with them, at least) but in this case I wasn’t a huge fan of Amon’s actions in the beginning of the book. He basically kidnaps Lilliana’s life force, or at least, invades it, uses it, without her consent, and then when she tries to run away, he follows her! Not flattering, Amon, not flattering. Although this remained in the back of my mind for a lot of the novel, I was able to let go of this, and enjoyed his character well enough. He was sweet and it was lots of fun reading about how he tried to get used to everything in the modern world. Amon definitely has potential (though he doesn’t deserve someone like Lilliana) and I’ll be looking forward to seeing how it all turns out with him!
Writing Style
“Eternity is a long time to exist without something to remember.”
The novel was all told from Lilliana’s perspective, if I’m not mistaken, which, I will admit, limited my liking of the writing. Lilliana’s character just simply grated on my nerves, and although I’d usually commend authors for having their character’s voice so clearly in the writing, it bothered me here. Apart from that, it was easy to read (aside from the info-dumping sections) and I don’t really have any complaints about it! I did notice that it really developed from the Tiger’s Curse style; you can tell that Houck really improved her writing, which was already really good in her previous series. 😉
Overall…
I’m deciding to go with a rating of 3 stars. I mean, I enjoyed the novel while reading, but it had too many flaws for me to give a higher rating. Note that I didn’t hate this book, but I didn’t love it either. Perhaps if I had been writing my review immediately after I read the book, maybe my rating might be higher, but it wouldn’t be accurate considering how the more I think of the book, the more I’m able to find more flaws that I realize I didn’t like in the book. My main problems were stemmed from the fact that I wasn’t a huge fan of the characters, specifically Lilliana, and too much of the story’s outline reminded me of Tiger’s Curse. That being said, I will definitely give a shot to the second book in this series.
Do I recommend picking it up? I think, if you’re really interested, your safest bet would be to borrow from the library or from a friend, but with this kind of book, I’d say it’s up to you whether or not you should read it!
So there we have it! Sorry for that long review, everyone!! XD Got a litle bit too much rambling done in there.
But don’t let it go all in vain! Tell me, have you read this novel? If so what did you think of it? Do you want to read it? Do you no longer want to read it? Let me know in the comments below! ❤
Enjoy your day! Hugs!
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