Goodreads Synopsis:
This is the history of the time of Pharaoh Snefru and Queen Hetepheres, the parents of Cheops, who built the largest and most impressive pyramid of all. It is also the story of Sedum, a slave who became Cheops’ teacher, the high priest Ramosi, and how the first pyramid came to be built.
Sebekhotep, the great wise man of that time, said, “Everything is written in the stars. Most of us live our lives unaware of it. Some can read the stars and see their destiny. But very few people learn to write in the stars and change their destiny.”
Ramosi and Sedum learned to write in them and tried to change their destinies, but fortune treated them very differently. This is a tale of the confrontation between two men’s intelligence: one fighting for power, the other struggling for freedom.
Review:
So, this was my pick for “Small Country” in the #Readtheworldathon challenge as the author is from Andorra and I couldn’t find any other book available. It’s historical fiction about Egypt and I love historical fiction so figured it would be a good read.
I was wrong. I was very, very wrong.
I almost put this book down in the first few chapters as it starts off with a graphic sex scene between a child slave and a man who snuck into her tent. No, the man did not rape her as this child slave was very happy and willing to have sex for the first time with this complete stranger. At that point I lost all respect for the author and his writing and only continued to see how much worse it could get.
That was the worst part, but the rest of the book was not much better. I found it incredibly boring, badly written and I’d definitely say this is one of the worst books I’ve ever read. I only finished it because of my challenge to read something from around the world.
I do not recommend this book to anybody. If you are trying to read around the world and want to read something from Andorra then I recommend leaving it until last in the hopes that something else will become available because this is trash. I don’t say that very often about books (indeed usually when I don’t enjoy a book I recognise that there will still be plenty of people that will enjoy it) but I can not in any good conscious recommend a book that believes a child slave would willingly consent to sex with a random stranger. The author is disgusting and should be ashamed of himself.
BrenhinesBooks 