A review by adkwriter15
Egypt's Golden Couple: When Akhenaten and Nefertiti Were Gods on Earth by Colleen Darnell, John Darnell

informative medium-paced

3.25

It's been a while since I've sunk into a good Ancient Egypt nonfiction, and I was excited to see two of my favorite rulers get a new book. The book is primarily about what we know and how we know it, which is not always the case in books covering history. In particular, they walk through hieroglyph translations in a really fascinating way that certainly would have worked better in the print book. For that element alone, I highly recommend reading instead of listening to this, as I did. There are some odd elements, like fictional recreations of scenes (which, fine, I guess) and also somewhat irregular moments of the Darnells themselves on their travels, wrapped around the otherwise standard nonfiction text. Some people may enjoy these moments more than me, but perhaps I've gotten stuffy about not wanting the fictional recreations to muddle how I'm thinking about the information myself. The audiobook narration felt a little dry to me, and in some places she mispronounced words, which threw me off. In some sections, I zoned right out, and in others I was very taken in. Take that with a grain of salt, though, because my inability to concentrate probably also has to do that I listened to the bulk of this while waiting for a root canal appointment and wasn't really all there. I imagine that a fan of this historical period will enjoy this--just read it to get a better experience than the audiobook.