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3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
informative
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book had the potential for greatness. My tiny little Egypt-obsessed heart was immediately intrigued and devastated by Neferura's plight. Her position at court is precarious: caught between two pharaohs and their grudges against each other. She is pulled into a web of secrets and betrayals and danger, including dealings with a lady spy and her scorpion minions. She harbors feelings for one of her guards but is terrified when her half-brother, Thutmose, becomes co-pharaoh and his anger and jealousy and blind hatred threaten everything she loves. I expected this to be lushly described. I wanted the setting to become a main character. But it fell very flat. It became a very plot-centered story, and the ending kind of threw me for a loop.
thanks to netgalley and the publisher for my free copy!
one thing about me is i will read any feminist mythology retelling. i had bare minimum knowledge of ancient egypt, which took me a little longer to to really get into the story. however, the writing was simple and easy to understand, though sometimes TOO simple and easy that it's hardly believable...
one thing about me is i will read any feminist mythology retelling. i had bare minimum knowledge of ancient egypt, which took me a little longer to to really get into the story. however, the writing was simple and easy to understand, though sometimes TOO simple and easy that it's hardly believable...
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
informative
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
informative
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
emotional
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
It was an interesting book mainly because of its setting in Egypt. You can tell that the author knows the time period and the historical characters and has brought them to life with a lot of realism.
The plot of betrayal and lies is very interesting, and I also liked the fact that the women are the main characters.
The only problem I see is the pace of the book, at the beginning it is very slow and at the end in 5 chapters everything explodes very quickly.
Thank you Netgalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the eARC in exchange of my honest review.
The plot of betrayal and lies is very interesting, and I also liked the fact that the women are the main characters.
The only problem I see is the pace of the book, at the beginning it is very slow and at the end in 5 chapters everything explodes very quickly.
Thank you Netgalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the eARC in exchange of my honest review.
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
The word that I think best applies to this book is “adequate”, in that the characters and plot all seem to largely function as they should, and the worldbuilding also works quite well. There’s nothing about any of those things that I think functions terribly. But there’s a certain lack of depth that I was expecting to find, and didn’t.
The first contributing factor to this is the choice of narrative tone. Using Neferura to narrate the story is interesting, and telling it from her POV is also interesting, but the TONE used? Much less so, given that it reads like young adult instead of adult, which is what I expected when I picked up this novel. Nothing wrong with that age group, of course, but this book wasn’t marketed as such, and so I was expecting a higher level of maturity from the story than what I got. Maybe this is because the author writes middle grade books and hasn’t quite got the hang of writing for adults just yet? I don’t want to think this is the case, but it’s possible, given her bibliography.
Another issue is that the lead character and narrator, Neferura, seems to lack layers and nuance to make her a sufficiently compelling character and narrator. Because of this, Neferura’s concerns, while they SEEM genuinely troubling, feel narrow, because she doesn’t have enough layers to her to feel like a fully fleshed-out person. This is a problem with the other characters, as well. Hatshepsut, for example, is portrayed as a secondary villain in this novel, but her characterization feels so narrow in comparison to the historical reality of who she was. My perspective might be influenced by the fact that I read Kara Cooney’s Hatshepsut biography, but I think that there could have been more complexity and nuance in the way Hatshepsut was portrayed in this book. I’m not saying she cannot be portrayed as a villain; I’m just saying that there needs to be more nuance. The same goes for Thutmose: he’s easy to portray as unlikeable, and was portrayed as such even in Cooney’s biography, but even in his unlikability there’s room for nuance. There were moments when his behavior seemed psychopathic, which would have been an INTERESTING path to take, but the portrayal isn’t given any additional angles or nuance.
What makes this even sadder is that there are plenty of aspects in this book with immense potential. The worldbuilding, as I’ve said, is incredibly well done, and I appreciated the author using actual ancient Egyptian terms for things like the Nile and Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple. There are elements that are also really fascinating: that whole bit with the tattooed wisewoman and her spy network would have been incredibly interesting to explore vis a vis the themes of societal change and potential revolution that were touched upon (but not really explored) throughout the novel. Sadly none of these get the attention and development I think they deserved.
Overall, this book was something of a let-down. Hobbled by an underdeveloped protagonist, a juvenile narrative tone, and a lack of exploration of interesting themes, this novel left me feeling nothing much at all. This is an immense pity, given the potential of other elements in this story, but it is what it is, and perhaps other readers may find something in it to enjoy.