Reawakened

by Colleen Houck

Summary 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.

Thoughts on the Book

I've been making some good progress going through my BEA books.  This was the next on my pile to read.  It got bumped up in the list because some fellow bloggers gave it awesome reviews, so I couldn't wait to read it myself.  And then there's the cover: sooooo pretty!

My Review

This book is about a mummy, Amun, who awakens.  He's not an evil mummy, but a demi-god blessed by Amon-Ra and Horus to return every millenia to thwart Seth (or Set) with his two brothers.  When Amun wakes up he is in the Met in NYC and the only one around is a perfect rich girl, Lilliana, who is discontent with her "perfect" life.

The characters in this are amazing.  Lilliana, or as Amun calls her, Lily, is wonderful.  I absolutely loved her.  Her parents are sort of there.  They try to be there for Lily, but she finds them to be mostly absent.  They're both very power driven and want Lily to be perfect and influential, not to mention do absolutely nothing to tarnish their reputation.  But the do really care for Lily, and she knows it.  That's the struggle for her.  She wants to go to college, but not an Ivy League one just for the prestige, she loves observing people, but doesn't want to disappoint her parents by going for a not-so-fabulous degree.  Meeting her at the beginning when she was contemplating college while hanging out at the Met I thought she'd love Anthropology, it's all about people watching and understanding them.  After finished the book I'd be shocked if she didn't go that route, maybe not Cultural Anthropology anymore but Archaeology.  

Amun is another fantastic character.  He's so sweet, and very smart.  Not to mention eloquent.  Good lord some of the stuff that guy said.  Even Lily thought he was being overly cheesy, but she quickly realized he was just speaking from the heart.  Those ancient Egyptian princes, they were real poets.  I also absolutely loved his second nickname for Lily (Lily, or Young Lily, being the first), Nehebet.  It means water lily, specifically a rare water lily that only grows in oases.  

Reawakened was action-packed throughout.  From the very beginning when Amun awakens then gets hit by a car then run over by a few more.  The journey to Egypt, the epic battles throughout that lead up to the even more epic battle at the end.  There wasn't a dull moment.  Even the slower parts of the book were laced with humor.  Amun would call taxis yellow chariots and airplanes white flying chariots.  When he first met Lily he told her he was accustomed to waking to a feast and singing, but she could sing to him later.  Silly things like that kept happening, and even after Amun became more accustomed to our time Asten showed up and started making silly comments along with his over the top personality.

I absolutely loved this book.  It wasn't written like your typical YA book, it felt more like an adult novel.  The romance wasn't all consuming, it was more of an annoyance to Lily for most of the book.  It also read like a stand alone book.  I actually thought that it was until I looked at GoodReads and it said "the Reawakened #1", sigh, why can't there be awesome stand alones?  Why do they always have to be part of a series?  I just hope the later ones in the series read the same way this one did.  

I give this a 10/10.  My only complaints are a smidgen more foreshadowing when they met Osahar would have been nice, and more Asten and Ahemet.  Seriously, the little taste of them we got just left me wanting to know them more!  Asten's so great, and his bantering with Ahemet was so entertaining.  So for book two, more of the brothers please!!