A Review By: Amelia
Historical fiction is my favourite genre of novel. I love
looking back on my favourite time periods and peoples of history and seeing an
alternate set of events–or possibly even an alternate history entirely–play out
before me! I guess I’m a nerd like that! One of my favourite time periods in
history–and therefore one of my favourites to read about–is ancient Egypt, so
imagine my delight when I found an author I’d yet to read anything by who
writes about ancient Egypt! And not just ancient Egypt, but badass women from
ancient Egypt! Well, that settled it, I was on board immediately for Nefertiti.
The author of Nefertiti
is Michelle Moran, who has also written about ancient Egypt in two other
historical fiction novels: The Heretic
Queen and Cleopatra’s Daughter.
She found her love for Egypt during her six years as a public high school
teacher when she used her summers to travel the world and volunteer on
archaeological digs. She has also written Madame
Tussaud and The Second Empress.
Nefertiti and her younger sister Mutnodjmet were born and
raised in a powerful family that have provided wives to the rulers of Egypt for
centuries. Nefertiti is chosen by her aunt–the Queen of Egypt–to settle her
unstable son Amunhotep, who has dreams of turning Egypt religion on its head by
worshipping not gods, but Aten, the physical disk of the Sun, as the one true
god. Nefertiti is chosen to calm Amunhotep and steer him away from his
heretical desires, but Nefertiti does not see it as such. By manipulating her
pharaoh husband out of jealously for the time he spends with his other wives
and her own want for power and to be remembered through the ages, Nefertiti
helps him build a city dedicated to this one god and twist tradition and
religion into something that will benefit her. She becomes a second pharaoh and
is beloved by the people, but is unable to see the powerful priests and
generals plotting against her husband’s rule. Her sister is the only one who
sees what is happening, yet remaining loyal to Nefertiti will force Mutnodjmet
into a dangerous political game she never wanted to play.
The main characters in this are the beautiful yet scheming
Nefertiti, the completely batshit crazy Amunhotep, and the timid plant lover
Mutnodjmet. There are other characters including Amunhotep’s parents,
Nefertiti’s and Mutnodjmet’s parents, and a selection of priests, generals, and
Kiya, Amunhotep’s second most important wife. Overall, I was a little
disappointed with the characters as they’re all pretty flat. Nefertiti was
probably the most well rounded but most of the time she still came off as
nothing but a spoiled brat. Amunhotep was the most interesting character for
me, but that’s just because he was so obviously crazy! All the characters were
scheming in one way or another and the devious political backstabbing and
conniving tricks just got tiresome as the one-note characters played them out.
Looking past the lackluster characters, the best part of Nefertiti, for me, were the locations:
especially Amarna, the city that Amunhotep built to be the new capital of
Egypt. What makes Amarna so interesting is that Amunhotep built it over the
course of just a few years, relocated the entire royal court there, and then it
was abandoned only a few years later, and not again inhabited until Roman
settlement. It’s all very mysterious and I just love reading about historical
mysterious!
All in all, Nefertiti
was an entertaining read. The characters were flat and a little plain and the
dialogue in some scenes just seemed redundant or over done, but by no means did
that ruin the experience for me. Nefertiti, as a historical figure, is always
fascinating to read about; and her crazy husband (at least, crazy as far as
this story goes if not in life) was compelling.
My final thoughts on Nefertiti
are that it’s an impulsive read. There were parts of it I didn’t care for but
that didn’t stop me from wanting to know what happened next; and the last one
hundred pages makes up for it anyways as the best scenes of action happen there
and my favourite line in the whole piece (it’s about Anubis but I won’t spoil
it for anyone!). I recommend anyone with an interest in ancient Egypt–whether
it’s a passing fancy to a hardcore obsession–to give this book a shot.
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