Book Review: Cleo

Author: Lucy Coats

Rating: 2/5

Publication date: May 7th 2015

I was so looking forward to this and was extremely disappointed. I've never read historical Egyptian fiction before so my mind was completely open to the idea of it. Cleo is a modern twist on this and I will definitely not be basing my idea of the genre off of this one novel.

"Her precious mother is dead - and it isn't an accident! The young Cleopatra - Pharaoh's illegitimate daughter - must flee the royal palace at Alexandria or die too. As her evil half-sisters usurp the throne, Cleo finds sanctuary at the sacred temple of Isis, where years later she becomes initiated into the secret Sisters of the Living Knot. But now Isis's power is failing, Egypt is in danger, and Cleo must prove her loyalty to her goddess by returning to the Alexandria she hates. She must seek out the hidden map which is the key to returning Isis's power - on pain of death. But will she be able to evade her horrible sisters? And will she find dreamy Khai, the über-hot Librarian boy she met as she fled Alexandria years before? Cleo's powerful destiny is about to unfold..." (From Goodreads)

I found the plot incredibly anti-climatic. There's this initiation type thing concerning the character Cleo and the Goddess Isis. Now, it was set up in a very you either live or die way and yet the result was kind of brushed off as if it wasn't much of a big deal. It should have been a big deal!

I also struggled to connect with Cleo as a narrator. I found myself wanting her friend Charm to join the scene to make my reading experience slightly more enjoyable. I don't know whether it was because the voice of Cleopatra was used in a teen character or something else that makes me dislike Cleo. I just don't know. She was difficult to sympathise with. In the story she suffers from the loss of people she loves but somehow forgets about them quite easily.

This book is the first in a planned trilogy and is the ending quite obviously sets up for this as there is no real concluding chapter. I think there is potential for the next books to be more engaging than this one but I can't see myself reading them.

Overall, I liked the ideas behind the story but, for me, it just didn't work.

Thank you for reading!