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Nefertiti: The Book Of The Dead (2008)

by Nick Drake(Favorite Author)

3.34 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0060765917 (ISBN13: 9780060765910)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Harper Perennial

series

Rai Rahotep

review 1: I generally enjoy historical fiction. Particularly mysteries set in a historical setting. But this book just didn't work for me. Drake did a wonderful job painting the layout and city structure of ancient Egypt, but fell flat on his characters. The characters didn't feel different culturally from people today despite living in what to us is an alien world. And often their motivations and actions didn't mesh at all with the society they were supposed to be living in. In a good historical fiction novel, the things characters feel and "know" rarely match those of a modern 21st century character. They have different prejudices, different beliefs, and different reactions to what happens around them. In this book it felt like most of the characters were only partially a fit for ... morethe time and society they lived in.
review 2: I usually don't read modern literature, but I decided to give this book a chance due to curiosity. When I was a child, I wanted to be an archaeologist when I grew up, and Egypt was a main passionate study of mine, so that was the honest reason as to why I picked up this book. It was rather dry at times and hard for me to imagine characters and settings in some segments, but I finished the book. It was alright for the clearance price I bought it for, but some of the writing style did not sync with the time period and setting, in my opinion. Granted I know that no one can write a story about how Ancient Egypt was 100%, but some things just shattered the illusion in this book- like the main character Rahotep using the word machismo. I know Drake was probably just looking for the best word to help the reader understand the situation, but I obviously found it hard to swallow that Ancient Egyptians knew of a word specifically from Latin culture. Immature reason or not, this is just an example to show how the illusion of the setting was ruptured at times. It wasn't a terrible read, but it wasn't catchy enough for me to finish it eagerly. less

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