Tuesday, September 22, 2015

MARA DAUGHTER OF THE NILE by Eloise Jarvis McGraw ✮✮✮✮

Welcome to Reagan's (6th grade) first book review!

Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis McGraw, is about a girl named Mara who was a slave and then some dude freed her. Not really though because it turns out he makes her go to be the interpreter for a Syrian princess, but she’s actually secretly a spy. SAY WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT??!?!?!?!!?!?

If I were to just hear the plot of the book, I would think it sounded lame and stupid, but it had great reviews on the back, so I read it. However, I loved how Ms. McGraw wrote later on in the book, but it was very hard to get into in the beginning. It wasn’t until pretty far into the book that I was actually agreeing with those reviews. I also loved how she wrote her characters.

I liked Mara because she was sly, witty, smart and brave, but after she met Sheftu, she started getting a little bit annoying because she was so lovesick. Sheftu was, well, um, he was odd. Yeah he is very hard to describe. He has a lot of mood swings. One moment he’s all happy and chill, and then the next he’s all mad at random people for no reason. I don’t think I would want to be his friend. Innanni was really sweet, and I really liked her. She was the Syrian princess that Mara had to be the interpreter for.

A couple of the secondary characters were Thutmose and Hatshepsut. Thutmose was silent, but when he did talk he could be very mean. Nobody really liked Hatshepsut, because she wasn’t a very good ruler, at least, not in the main characters’ perspectives. I thought that she was actually a great person to take the throne of Egypt. 

Even if they didn’t mention they were in Egypt, it was very obvious that they were, but only because they went to a pyramid and Hatshepsut went the ruler. I think the setting was very shoddily described because she didn’t mention any dates or cultural things.


Overall, I loved the book, and I would really recommend it to anyone who likes a smart female main character who is brave, sly and witty, and who likes a loooooove storyyyyyy. Ooooooooohhhhhhh… <3 <3 :) :)

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