Age: 15
Title: Reawakened
Author: Colleen Houck
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Pub Date: 08/11/15
Galley: Yes
Top 25: No
Convince us to read the book: I just wasn't a fan of this book at all. I picked it up thinking it might be an action-packed thriller about Egyptian mythology. Instead, the book begins with Lily, a girl who accidentally bumps into a magical Egyptian prince wandering unseen around a museum, who then casts a spell on her to make her his forced travelling companion. For some reason, he needs to leech off of her life force, which doesn't make sense because he already has solar power. All Lily does is follow him around, fall in love with him, and explain useless cultural references for him which he would have figured out anyway. All Lily seems to talk about is how awesome her "gorgeous sun-god boyfriend" the ever-oblivious Amon is (who isn't even her boyfriend, considering they never really kiss), and indeed he seems to have no faults. He can teleport, can use solar power, can levitate things, can manipulate time, shoot fire from his hands, make his skin glow, and make glowing swords from nothing using magic. Want to look inconspicuous? Amon can use Jedi mind tricks to keep hidden. It seems quite unclear why Lily is actually necessary. Amon's powers seem to be able to do whatever the plot wants them to. Lily, meanwhile, is just along for the ride. And, if not for the fact that Amon's canopic jars have been lost (what sort of Egyptologist forgets to keep that sort of stuff together with the mummy they were found with?) then Lily wouldn't be there at all. Lily seems only to talk about Amon's perfectness and how strict and terrible her parents are. I had to skip multiple paragraphs while trying to read this book because I got tired of Lily focusing more on Amon or on her dull life than on saving the world, which they never really got that far with. There were multiple times where, when reading, I thought, "Okay, Lily, I know you love Amon and he's perfect and your parents are restrictive and whatever. We've already established this almost five times in this chapter now." The "saving the world" part never seems very urgent because they waste time eating, almost-kissing, talking, staring at each other, and dancing at a nightclub in Cairo. By the time they actually began trying to save the world, I had already lost interest. It's also kind of weird how she falls in love with her kidnapper. She just stops being angry at him after a while and suddenly starts falling in love. Also, why does an Egyptian prince have light-ish skin and hazel/green eyes? Is that truly necessary? The characters are paper-thin. I couldn't care less if one (or both) of them were buried by falling rubble in an underground tomb.
Memorable or Forgettable: It seems forgettable because it seems unoriginal. It seems to have taken pieces from Night At The Museum, Twilight (with mummies instead of vampires and without the love triangle), The Mummy, and many other works of fiction. Where originality is needed, it instead relies on well-known tropes of the genre to get by.
Cover: It wasn't that interesting to me, as I was only slightly interested enough when I read the back.
Age Range: 12 through 15
Quality: 2Q - Needs more work
Popularity: 4P - Broad general teen appeal
tags: romance / adventure / Egyptian mythology / ya lit
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