Revived

What is the first thing you think when you see this book? It has a great, interesting and unique cover. I loved it so much I use it as wallpaper on my phone since the day of the cover reveal.
And what about the blurb? Who doesn't want to read about a girl who comes back from the dead, not just once, but five times?!

Well, it’s a totally different experience to picture how this book turns out in your mind than to actually read it. People usually tell me I am a difficult person to please when it comes to books but I can't help and be picky after I spent so many years reading all sort of genres and writing styles.

So, Daisy is a fifteen-year-old girl who died five times. Every time she is brought back to life with a secret, experimental drug called Revive. After she died last time she has to move with her parents to a new town and she has to start a new life, because that is what God, the guy who is running this whole operation ordered. She enjoys decorating her room and stays away from other classmates because making friends just isn't worth it when you have to move away in a couple of years. That all changes when she meets Audrey and her brother Matt. Daisy eventually falls in love with Matt and tells him all about Revive. This is where things get complicated. I don't want to reveal too much if you are planning to read it soon.

There wasn't anything wrong with the book. It just wasn't for me. Maybe if I was sixteen I would be jumping up and down after reading it. Since I'm clearly not I see the flaws it has, such as unrealistic setting, sappy romance and I think this is the most important one-it needs to be a page turner. Revived wasn't a page turner. There were so many boring pages I almost gave up, three times. Personally, I think it was a really stupid thing to tell Matt about the magical cure. If everyone is working so hard to keep it a secret, why would you jeopardize everything so your boyfriend would know all about you? The ending was unsatisfying.

I wouldn't recommend this book but if I have to I would say a lot of younger readers and those who don't need a lot of character built up will enjoy Revived.

One of the few (in my estimation) downsides to a standalone novel is the way it limits the author as far as scope and subplots are concerned. Revived by Cat Patrick is a novel that, in spite of its promise, attempts too much in too little space. I wouldn’t say this book should have been the first of a series–there isn’t enough material for that–but I do think either Patrick should have cut some things out or added on about 100 pages. As is, this book felt rushed and underdeveloped in spite of its intriguing premise and likable characters.

The first thing I noticed with Revived was that whoever wrote the jacket blurb didn’t do a very good job (a phenomenon I’m starting to notice more and more often). Patrick’s protagonist, Daisy, is neither reckless nor thrill-seeking. She doesn’t die on purpose, just because she knows her guardians will Revive her. It’s just that she seems to run into bad luck every now and then. With that in mind, I liked Daisy as a character more than I’d expected. Really, she was an average teenager who liked to read and blog. She moves to a new town, makes a friend and crushes on her brother, Matt.

I mean, obviously there’s some stuff with a special drug that raises the dead going on, too. That’s where I started to get a but confused as to Cat Patrick’s intentions with this novel. Did she want it to be a book about how Daisy saves her new friend’s life with the magical medicine? Or a romance-centric novel where Daisy and Matt work through issues of trust and honesty? Or was this supposed to be a YA thriller with a sci-fi twist, where Daisy fights to stop a sociopath from killing innocent people? Because all three of those storylines were present in Revived, but due to the limited page count of the book, it was difficult for the author to do it all justice.

That impression, of everything crammed into a box too small, ended up giving this novel a feeling of being rushed. And, honestly, it made things slightly hard to follow. Not in an “I’m confused, what’s going in?” sense, but more of a “Wait, why are we focusing so much on this one thing right now? What about XYZ?” type thing. Dealing with that kind of storyline is very much a balancing act, and I really feel like Patrick might need to go back to tightrope walking academy.

The whys and wherefores of the drug Revive, for instance, were really interesting. I really would have enjoyed it if the high school romance/friendship elements of the book had taken a backseat to the science fiction parts. The information the author provided on that front was fascination and well-presented. I think Revived could only have benefitted from more on that topic.

Cat Patrick’s prose was effective and appropriate for the books topic and audience, but nevertheless unremarkable. I’ve never been one to go for a simple, nondescript writing style. So while prose definitely wasn’t a detractor from Revived, I would have enjoyed this book more had Patrick’s style been more memorable.

In spite of what, I’m sure, seems like a lengthy list of this book’s failings, I did enjoy Revived. It wasn’t my favorite, and I don’t plan on raving about it, but it was decent and entertaining. I certainly thought this novel was worth my time.

I liked how the book started right off with the drama. It was the best way to begin the explanation of the drug and give background on the story. From the beginning you see that Daisy's life is anything but ordinary. The conspiracy theories and drama had me hooked to the last page.

Daisy has died five times in total. And now, she's kind of tired of moving every time. She wants to settle down, have a best friend, a boyfriend, and parents that aren't two secret agents.

She's part of a program called Revive. It's a top secret drug that can bring people back to life. Only 21 kids get to use it (Daisy included). It's controlled by an anonymous guy they call God. The secret project and its sinister goal, in my opinion, was not investigated enough. We should have had a chance to learn more about it. It was a bit vague. But, it did have an entertaining plot, even though it wasn't very unpredictable.

Daisy has a very relatable voice, we can see her developing a relationship with Audrey and Matt, her first best friend and boyfriend. Being able to come back to life whenever she dies, Daisy doesn't have particularly strong feelings about death. So when she's faced with actual, non-reversable death, she doesn't know what to do. She starts thinking. Is it fair that she can come back and others can't? Is Revive actually helping people?

From her first death, we also see her experiencing her first love. She has a believable relationship with Matt. Like in any teenage love story, there are a few bumps. But I think that, after so long without friends, she was a bit too trusting. I mean, she gave up her huge secret to her new boyfriend much too easily.

This is a good story that I would recommend to people who want to read contemporary fiction with a bit of a sci-fi twist.

-