Book Review:  Reawakened by Colleen Houck

YA readers who have grown out of Rick Riordan’s Egyptian-based Red Pyramid series (Kane Chronicles) may enjoy this book, if they are up to a slower-paced and more romance-focused adventure tale of a modern student meeting ancient Egyptian mythology.  At the start of the book, protagonist Lillianna Young seems to have a dream life–she lives a rich and privileged life as the only child of a wealthy professional couple in Manhattan.  Sensible, high-achieving, and responsible, Lillianna’s world starts to fall apart when a revived Egyptian prince with god-like powers co-opts her into assisting him in reuniting with his brothers to perform a mystical ceremony to keep the world from falling into darkness under the rule of Seth, the Egyptian god of chaos.  But is Lily helping to bring Amon and his brothers to life…or vice versa?

I liked the exotic setting of the book, and actually preferred it to the Riordan series, which was so jam-packed with myths and monsters that I was unfamiliar with that I had a tendency to get lost.  With fewer characters and ancient stories to keep up with, I could appreciate the mythology lesson better.  And this book (the first of a new series) places much more attention on the relationship than just on the action.  While the crux of the book is the Lily-Amon relationship, I was more interested in the triad of the brothers and how each interacted with Lily.  There are lots of YA romances, but fewer explorations of the love between brothers (especially those associated with ancient Egyptian gods) and how a female in the mix can change everything.

It had lovely imagery, interesting characters, not too-frenetic action, and a good brush-up on Egyptian history, culture, and, of course, mythology.  So I found it to be a good read.