Title: Revived
Author: Cat Patrick
Publish Date: May 8th 2012 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Source: Received from the publisher for review via NetGalley
Summary:
As a little girl, Daisy Appleby was killed in a school bus crash. Moments after the accident, she was brought back to life.
A secret government agency has developed a drug called Revive that can bring people back from the dead, and Daisy Appleby, a test subject, has been Revived five times in fifteen years. Daisy takes extraordinary risks, knowing that she can beat death, but each new death also means a new name, a new city, and a new life. When she meets Matt McKean, Daisy begins to question the moral implications of Revive, and as she discovers the agency’s true goals, she realizes she’s at the center of something much larger—and more sinister—than she ever imagined.
Review:
Though I didn’t have the opportunity to read Cat Patrick’s deubt novel, Forgotten, I heard nothing but praise for it. It was an easy decision for me to add Revived to my TBR.
Daisy Appleby is, for the most part, a completely ordinary girl. She doesn’t have superpowers. She runs a blog with her best friend and she’s a little overly fond of interior decorating. Totally normal. Except Daisy has died five times. In fact, Patrick sucks you into her novel immediately as Daisy is stung by a bee and dies for the fifth time. I sort of had “Bring Me To Life” by Evanescence echoing in my head when I read this.
Revived is rooted in a contemporary world with one small touch of science-fiction: a drug that can bring people back to life. Patrick doesn’t go overmuch into the specifics of how the drug works, which I honestly appreciated. I bought it anyway due to Daisy’s character and the secret organization atmosphere. If she’d gone into technicalities, there was a chance that I would have have deemed it boring and half started trying to find flaws in the logic.
Many teens– and heck, people in general– seem to feel like they are invincible, taking unnecessary risks. Daisy is no different from them, perhaps a little flippant at the idea of death in certain aspects. But even Revive has its limitations, and watching Daisy come to grips with that is heart-rending.
But no wonder she feels that way. The program is entirely sacreligious, with this flagrant disregard for a higher power or even that death is permanent. The head of the program is nicknamed God because he decides who lives or dies. His agents are disciples. With that kind of power-trip, it’s not shocking when Daisy discovers corruption in the system.
After her fifth death, when Daisy and her makeshift family of agents relocate to a new town, Daisy develops a friendship with a girl a few lockers down from her named Audrey. Audrey is her first real friend outside the program, and you know? Props to Cat Patrick for healthy friendships in Revived. There is not a single instance of one of them trying to tear down the other for her own good.
And then there is Audrey’s brother, Matt. Daisy thinks he’s hot right off the bat, but we don’t jump right into insta-love with this romance. It’s more of a slow burn as we go down the checklist. Cute? check. Sense of humor? Check. Likes to be with his family? Check. Gives me swoony feelings in my chest? Checkcheckcheck. Not one bit of their romance feels contrived, even when Matt and Daisy are trying to find their way back to each other.
Daisy’s family may be makeshift, but she has a stellar father figure in Mason. He raises her with a sense of trust, lets her try to be a normal teen. Despite his secret agent man dealio, I wanted to reach into the book and give him a hug.
Overall rating: 4/5. A believable novel with one major twist of science-fiction, Revived makes you wonder how you’d act if death wasn’t a permanent option.
