Revived by Cat Patrick

"At some point, you have to admit that death is coming and be grateful for what you've had instead of pissed that it's going away."

I picked up Revived the other day while Christmas shopping after spotting it on the shelf and recognizing the author's name. I had read her debut novel, Forgotten, in late 2011 and really enjoyed it. I was excited to read her second novel and see if it was as good as the first. It was even better.

Daisy Appleby is stung by a bee, which she's deathly allergic to, and dies on the track field at her school in Michigan. She wakes up eight hours later as Daisy West and is forced to relocate to Omaha, Nebraska with her handlers. This is the fifth time Daisy has died.

After dying at the age in a school bus packed with children that swerved off a cliff, Daisy, along with most of the other children involved in the crash, was brought back to life by an experimental drug called "Revive."

Now fifteen and starting her sophomore year in high school, Daisy has officially died five times. Each time has resulted in she and her handlers being uprooted from whatever suburban area they had most recently made their home, changing their last names, and finding a new place in which they can start a new life. An orphan at the time of the crash, Daisy is taken care of by two agents in the system (called Disciples) and it's they who revive her, take care of her on a daily basis, and pose as her parents when in public.

Upon getting settled in, Daisy starts at a new school and soon finds that she's getting more attached than she's ever been before. Before now, she's always been isolated, fully aware that any friends she made would never truly know her, that she would never truly be able to confide in anyone the dark secrets that set her apart. Yet, here she finds herself not only making a best friend, but falling in love with a wonderful boy in her English class.

In the midst of this, she begins to discover that something's happening in the program that could put her and everyone she cares about in danger. Even Mason, her handler, is concerned. And when she discovers a new case, one outside of the group of test subjects that are meant to be the only ones receiving the drug, Daisy realizes that the creator of the drug is up to something and no one is safe.

I really enjoyed Cat Patrick's debut novel, but Revive absolutely topped it. The science fiction aspect of the novel was totally grounded and fascinating, but instead of focusing on that part of the story, most of it pivots on Daisy and how she grapples with life and the concept of death. Patrick found the perfect balance for her story, positioning it so that the reader bites their nails about what's going on in Daisy's secret world of agents and people who have been brought back from the dead as well as the world in which she deals with the terminal illness of a friend that can't be cured by the serum.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a pretty easy read, yet really interesting. Everything was brought around full circle and no loose strings were left dangling. It was perfectly fascinating and a great read for these winter months in which we're all tempted to stay indoors with our coffee cups and our fleece blankets.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

But I can't. I can't speak. And I can't take Matt's pain, because I have too much of my own, and I have no place to put his.