Review: Revived

Revived, by Cat Patrick. The GoodReads 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.

This book and I were getting along real well until about halfway through. I was diggin’ the plot line and the characters and the writing style. But then I hit this point where I lost my respect for first the main character, Daisy, and then for Matt, her love interest, and it kinda all went downhill from there. Let me explain.

Some spoilers ensue. Also a rant. Be warned.

So the whole premise of the book is that Daisy is part of this program where they’re trying out a trial drug that can bring people back to life. Cool, right? Of course, Daisy isn’t allowed to tell anyone about the drug or the fact that she’s been brought back from the dead. But then she meets Matt, is madly crushing on him, and after only knowing him for a few weeks—months at most—she decides that she has to be honest with him and true to her feelings for him and tell him the truth about everything. WHY!?! It’s not her secret to tell! Other people are involved too, and Daisy could cause such massive problems if Matt lets anything slip. But does she care? Nope. For some reason she just has to tell the hot guy she crushing on EVERYTHING for no good reason. It’s just such an immature decision!

So that annoyed me, and I pretty much lost respect for Daisy right there. But then comes the second blow. Matt’s sister is dying. And even though Daisy tells him that the drug doesn’t work on cancer patients, he asks her to steal the drug for him to try on his sister. A) when is it EVER a good idea to try out a top secret drug you know nothing about on your sister? And B) how is it at all okay for Matt to ask Daisy to steal for him? It’s so unbelievable shady and insulting. If my boyfriend asked me to commit a crime for him, I would drop him like he’s hot so quick, you’d best believe it. And what annoys me the most is that neither Daisy or Matt bats an eyelash at what he’s asking her to do. Does Matt not have a conscience and does Daisy not have a sense of righteous indignation?

And oh, another thing that bugged me was the fact that Daisy has died and been brought back to life FIVE times. How is that realistic? She ascribes it to being accident prone, but SERIOUSLY?!? FIVE times? No 15-year-old has that many near-death experiences in real life.

And lastly, the ending was so unbelievable. It was so perfectly easy and tied up with a bow that I was just like, REALLY?

So overall, the characters in this book let me down. Which is sad because I liked them so much in the beginning. But oh well. Ce la vie.

Rating: 2.5 / 5