Revived by Cat Patrick

Published: May 2012

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Pages: 336

Copy: Library

Summary: Goodreads

 As a little girl, Daisy Appleby was killed in a school bus crash. Moments after the accident, she wasbrought 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 takesextraordinary risks, knowing that she can beat death, but each new death also means a new name, anew 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.

For the longest time, I had put this book on hold at the library, assuming it was the follow-up to CatPatrick’s book Forgotten. I hadn’t bothered to read the summary, and was going almost entirely by the title, which seemed like it could be a sequel considering how Forgotten left off. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to find a stand alone book in my hands when it arrived. Revived is abook that as I was reading it, I enjoyed it immensely; but now that I’ve sat down to write the review, I realize that it was fairly cut and dried as far as the plot line goes.

 But what makes this book a draw in particular (aside from Cat Patrick’s writing style, which is amazingly easy to read – you quickly devour pages without realizing!) is the topic. What if you didn’t have to die permanently? What if you could be revived?

Daisy deals with this regularly – and while she has a carefree attitude, at the same time the nature of the Revive drug and her life as it is involved with the Revive project, also gives her a balancing caution And her isolation means that the relationships she does manage to develop are strong, and that her loss of them makes her grief unbearably real. Because Daisy has an air of immortality, her relationship with death is slightly skewed, but her growth and awareness mean that as a reader, if you’ve lost someone near to you, the connection is heart wrenching.

 The downfall of this book? Cat Patrick dealt so well with the loss and grief aspect of this book, that the ending seems almost cliché. There was no big build up, and no big twist that you didn’t see coming. It petered out nicely. Readers who do bother to read the summary may also be surprised to find that the secret-government-agency-plot doesn’t play quite as strongly into the story as you may expect – this really is a book about dealing with death.

 

Thanks so much to Special K for yet another great review.