Review: Nefertiti by Michelle Moran

Title: Nefertiti
Author: Michelle Moran
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Published: 2007
Pages: 496

Rating: 8 out of 10

I had enjoyed Moran's book Cleopatra's Daughter, but this book was absolutely excellent. I tore through it in one night, and then read nothing at all the next day, because the setting and characters of this book hadn't quite worn off yet.

This is the story of Nefertiti, the wife of 18th Dynasty Ancient Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, as told through the eyes of her sister Mutnodjmet.

Akhenaten's reign was one of the most notorious and controversial of the old Egyptian kingdom, as he replaced the traditional gods with only one god, Aten. I knew the basics of his story, but this book very much brought the situation to life.
I have always found Akhenaten interesting. In his time, the practice of monotheism, or worshiping only one god, was not popular. He also insisted that art depicting him and Nefertiti strive to portray how they really looked, rather than the cookie-cutter faces every pharaoh had etched on walls. Also, unheard of. His reign caused a lot of upset in Egypt, but in many ways he was a revolutionary man with great, new ideas.
This book portrays him to be not necessarily evil, but certainly selfish, arrogant, and at times weak.

Nefertiti was absolutely fascinating here. Clever, ambitious, scheming, ruthless, and of course, drop dead gorgeous. While this type of character could easily have fallen into the cliche category in the hands of another author, Moran executes it flawlessly. Nefertiti becomes a living, breathing character here that I both loved and hated.

The main character, Mutny, is the younger sister of the queen. Even though it is her narrating the story, she isn't quite as memorable as her sister, but the author still builds a strong character for her as well. Mutny had a sad story, and I became very attached to her. By the end, I was aching for everything to work out for her.

This book is impossible to put down with its constant plots and court intrigue, scheming queens and shifting loyalties. The dazzling, exotic world of Ancient Egypt is brought powerfully to life.

I was very impressed with this book, and I can't wait to read more by Michelle Moran. Highly recommended!

Review: Tut by Robin Martin Berard

Title: Tut: The Story of the Pharaoh and the Girl Who Loved Him
Author: Robin Martin Berard
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: iUniverse
Published: 2005
Pages: 196

Rating - 2 out of 10

I came across this awkward-looking book in the young adult section of my library. The very amateur cover, and a look at the author's bio on the back told me that this was a book by a local author here in Florida, published by one of those obscure publishing houses that advertises on pop-up ads online "Publish Your Book Now!"
Normally I would have put it back without a second glance, but this one was about Ancient Egypt. I can never resist that.

This is the story of Jo, a young girl in modern-day Florida who is bright, but thinks it's cooler to slack off in class. She could care less about her history teacher's lessons on Ancient Egypt, until she somehow travels back in time to the era of the pharaoh Tutankhamen. She is found by Nekhare, a young cousin to the king, and taken to the palace under the pretense that she is a long-lost relative with royal blood. As Jo, or Johenamun as she is now called, learns more about life in the ancient land, she begins to think that perhaps she was sent here to stay. Maybe she belongs here. However, drawing off memories of history classes she barely paid attention to, she is aware that the pharaoh Tutankhamen will soon die - and there are plenty of people who would jump at the chance to see him dead. Can Jo change history and save him before it is too late?

Just as the cover tried to tell me, this book was awkward. The writing was painful at best, and the entire thing was clumsily put together.

As a way to draw younger readers (this book is written in a juvenile way, but throws in some small adult themes... making me hesitant to recommend it to, well, anyone) into being interested in Ancient Egypt, this book may be mildly helpful. The author jumps at every chance to describe Egyptian way of life.
I didn't find any errors in her details, which was refreshing. I studied Egypt for eleven years (I know that makes me sound old, but actually it began as a childhood obsession and just never stopped) and I often spot at least a couple small mistakes.
Then again, the author never delved into all that deeply, rather skimming the surface and giving you basic, general facts.

Accuracy aside, the setting of this book never came across to me. And since that was the whole reason I read it (I forgave it for being amateur, I even forgave the whole time travel thing, which normally I wouldn't go near), I was very disappointed.

There is no getting around how very... unprofessional this book is. I'll take the hint from now on. Publishing houses do, in most cases, matter. And none of the big ones are going to be touching this script.

The characters are all lifeless, and the main character of Jo is annoying, as well as very un-realistic. More on that later. Nekhare played a very cliche part, and we are apparently expected to see him as evil just because he wants a harem when he is older and looks at a dancing girl. These things are described as if they are ominous details that are shockingly horrible. I'm sorry, but all this proves is that he is a very normal teenage boy. The author takes his "bad-guy" character a bit further, obviously trying to send a message about abusive boyfriends, and the whole thing is very stilted. I felt that Nekhare was following a script like a bad actor in a poorly directed movie.

The title is mis-leading. "The Story of the Pharaoh and the Girl who Loved Him." It seemed a very intriguing idea.
However, there is no romance story here, so do not be fooled by the deceptive words under the title.
If anyone is attracted to anyone, it is Nekhare and Jo, not Jo and the pharaoh. Tutankhamen seems intrigued by Jo, and in the opinion that she is beautiful and special, but do they ever fall in love? Certainly not.

The author's attempted picture of her heroine was a laughable one. Jo has been in Egypt for a few months, and now she is known through-out the land as a warrior, she knows how to do things that the entire Egyptian army has been training at for years, and she beats absolutely everyone, including the pharaoh. Berard obviously wants to portray Jo as a genius, a very talented and intelligent individual.
We get no picture of this. Jo came across as a slightly spoiled, annoying, stupid teenager. Nowhere in the story would I have called her clever or intelligent.

Some other annoying points of this book were...

- Jo learns hieroglyphs in a few months? And we are not talking about just having a basic understanding of them - she knows them ALL, and is reading and deliberating over Egyptian texts and scrolls. I'm sorry, but this is impossible. What could the author possibly have been thinking?

- As I mentioned above, Jo has unrealistic abilities. Within a few months, she repeatedly beats "the pharaoh's best archers."

- As Jo is on the watch for possible signs that someone may be plotting to murder Tutankhamun, he one day disappears and no one knows where he has gone. You would assume that Jo would be alarmed. Perhaps she is, but she shows her worry by taking a stroll over to an oil factory, where she is taken on a tour, and she tells a man how to make soap. I kept waiting for this to show any scrap of relevance to the plot. But no... it was pointless...

- Cheesy writing pervaded the book. A particular one I winced at was "Jo added - 's name to the list of people she thought might be planning to kill Tut." Ouch.

- Tutankhamen has a staring match with a deadly snake... I was giggling at this scene. Wow, corny.

- The author avoids mentioning that Tutankhamen wife, Ankhesenamun, is his sister. I can understand an author not wishing to describe, or have to be forced to somewhat defend, the incestuous relationships that were highly common in Egyptian royalty. However, she makes a slip-up, which to someone who does not know the facts, would be confusing. Tutankhamen refers to his mother, Kiya in one part of the story. A few chapters later, Ankhesenamun refers to her mother (also Kiya).

- The queen's baby daughter, which in history was born still-born, lives in this book. Though it is never brought up, it appears that the author had Jo change history here, because she helps the queen through her pregnancy and her birth.

- The whole thing at the end of there being an order of time-travelers, who glow purple, seemed extremely forced. I kept rolling my eyes.

- The author did the Buy-My-Next-Book trick! The most unforgivable, cheapest scam that an author can pull is when they end a book with a cliffhanger, in my opinion. This book does just that. We see Jo literally plummeting into danger, and then the book ends. I will certainly never, ever read Berard's next book now. Not that I ever was planning to... But the cliffhanger ending sealed it in stone for me.

This book, all in all, is clumsily written and painfully... well, bad. There were some entertaining bits, but not enough to redeem it. I would advise, for YA books on Ancient Egypt, my favorites - Mara Daughter of the Nile or The Golden Goblet, both by the brilliantly talented Eloise Jarvis McGraw.

Review: The Fortifications of Ancient Egypt by Carola Vogel

Title: The Fortifications of Ancient Egypt: 3000-1780 BC
Author: Carola Vogel
Genre: History / Architecture
Publisher: Osprey
Published: 2010
Pages: 64

Rating: 6 out of 10

I recently found myself in possession of hundreds and hundreds of Osprey books, which appear to all explore very specific military, war, battle, soldier, and other such army/war matters via short books on each topic.
Since Ancient Egypt is my favorite time period ever, I picked up this one as my first Osprey read.

I love how they include drawings in the book. Many non-fiction ancient history books seem to do their utmost not to include drawings. I understand that it is also very informative to show photos of ruins, or of hieroglyphs on rock walls, but drawings are simply far more helpful. In an age that left us behind no photos, I would think that drawings would be what authors and publishers automatically fall back on, but bafflingly, it isn't, I guess. The drawings here were helpful and I loved studying them.

The text was dry, including a lot of numbers as they gave the measurements of every single fortress, bridge, wall, and building, it seemed. It also jumped around quite a lot. The book contained a very long poem written by an Egyptian to the hawk god Horus. I was interested, but it seemed to be a space-filler due to its length. I wouldn't call the writing very good at all.
For being focused on such a narrow topic, though, this book is still informative. There is a helpful map showing both modern and ancient sites in Egypt, a chronological time chart of military events, and a map of the Nubian kingdom as well (relevant because the Nubians were a major concern to Ancient Egyptians, as they were constantly trying to invade their borders or rebel against their conquerors). I also liked that at the very beginning, the author tells us exactly where she got her information from, and it seems to be pretty hands on. Instead of giving us a long list of other books, she gives a list of ruined ancient sites, actual hieroglyphic records, tombs, and other such things.
Maybe she isn't the best writer, but I'm comforted in knowing that she is a good researcher.

All in all, I will be reading more of the huge pile of Osprey books I now have. If you need to know exactly how tall an ancient Egyptian fort was somewhere between 3000 - 1780 BC, this is the perfect book to tell you all about it.
Pretty specific, probably too much so to be of interest to just anyone in general, but I learned a few things. Who would have guessed that Egyptians actually built mud-slides to haul ships for short distances over the desert?