Reviews with content warning for Classism - Spice Road

Reviews tagging 'Classism'

Spice Road by Maiya Ibrahim

14 reviews

tired_cicada's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

“Perhaps everything he’s said to me— that he’s beneath me, that I don’t respect him— maybe he he actually believes that””

WELL WHY WOULDNT HE?!?!? You have given NO argument to the contrary!!

I’m gonna get this out of the way. The setting was the best part and the Romance was the worse.

The love triangle (?) was so unbelievably forced. She does not like either of these people and at no point is there an actual reason for that opinion to change. If you wanted to run this as an enemies to lovers having them kiss in the first book the way the do was the WRONG way to do it!

The setting is beautiful. The world has so much potential (even if the world building is a little heavy handed at times). We just had the misfortune of seeing it through the eyes of petulant children! Like why is the ACTUAL child, the 15 year old girl the ONLY ONE with real class consciousness and an understanding that other people live different lives than she does?!?!

Honestly I think the story would have been so much better if it was told from the older brother’s perspective. What he is doing is a trilogy on it own!! You have to do a lot to make your main character feel superfluous to the story.

Imma give the next book 50-75 pages to change my mind but unfortunately I'm probably going to DNF this series.

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shadow_cat94's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Maiya Ibrahim writes with beautiful imagery woven throughout the entire book as we travel through various locations during Imani's journey to her brother. The poetic language I found quite enjoyable to read from page to page. The pacing in each location also felt evenly timed for the journey without feeling rushed or dragging.

The things I didn't like about this book was the ending and the main character, Imani. I will be as vague as possible for the ending to avoid spoilers. In the final 20 pages we finally reach the climax of the story only for it to get resolved peacefully with an exchange of a few words. It felt anticlimactic, rushed, and frustrating even after I finished the book.

As for Imani, I was hoping for her to go through more character development during her journey than she did. There is nothing wrong with starting your book with a stubborn, selfish, and prideful main character as long as they end somewhere else at the end of the book. She is also a warrior known for these great feats, but she quickly gives up when confronted with large obstacles which made her warrior characteristic feel conflicting. Her only saving grace is her love for her family, which is to an obsessive point. Overall, I think Amira - the sister - should have been the main character.

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kbairbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

The growth of the main character was perhaps the most authentic and well done I've seen in a long time. I actually really liked the fierce and wise beyond her years younger sister. There were a fair variety of intense triggers so readers watch out! I'm very interested to see where the rest of the trilogy takes us.

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manaledi's review against another edition

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adventurous reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

An interesting magic theory with a good adventure. Might have needed a little more time in Qalia in the beginning to set up the class conflict between characters and why they hold onto beliefs so strongly. Sometimes hits you over the head with the moral questions of duty versus injustice versus family with a fairly brutal look at colonialism. Intrigued to see where we go from here.

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eahoffm2's review

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adventurous tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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hardcoverhaven's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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honuzbubbles's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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joygarcialim's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.25

Imagine being catfished and after having met the catfisher and he’s a 9/10 instead of the 5/10 you were led to believe, and yet you stay on to complete the date because you have been compelled somehow to find out more about him as a person, why would a good-looking person catfish as a less attractive person, but in the first minute he stands up, rips off his face to reveal he was wearing a mask, and he’s actually a 2/10, and you stay still, confused but even more compelled, on the date. That’s the Spice Road in a nutshell. The blurb sounded so good, but it was a hot mess whilst being compelling somehow, if only to see how much outlandish it gets. Kinda like watching a train wreck you can’t turn away from.

Imani, the MC, starts off being extremely bigoted. It made sense for her to be like that along with her backstory, and yet it goes on for a persistently long duration throughout the book without any signs of character growth until page 180+, and by page 366 she’s still bullshit, exploiting people’s trust to serve her own needs. She was extremely brainwashed and even when that started to derail, she seemed kind of self-serving. For instance, she displayed sympathy for someone only because she wanted people to feel empathy if her loved one was in that same situation. It’s interesting to read the book from her inner monologue because she’s untrusting yet naive, believed she was selfless when she was self-serving, and these are themes can be witnessed from everyday people. Mostly though, she was insufferable. The characterisation can be very, very awkward because she some times showed introspection but only when people reacted in a way she didn’t want.

She was very stubbornly ignorant,

during the scene of the execution, she was still unaware of why her brother might leave the safety of their nest to fight alongside the rebels. The weird execution scene got even weirder because Imani expected the girl to say her last words whilst being executed, that is, whilst the noose around her neck and she’s suspending in air.

It’s certainly odd to say the least, it’s hard to tell if this a deliberate choice by the author but it adds on to Imani’s bigotry so it kind of worked.

None of the characters were likeable, I’m going so far as to say most of the characters are unlikeable. Even if they were on the side of the morally ambitious, they didn’t have many dimensions or layers, and were mostly just annoying. The only character which had any enticement to them was Qayn.

Taha was a whole ‘nother hot mess. There were hints as to why he might

hate Imani, but no clues as to why he likes her. It wasn’t clear if he displayed affection to Imani purely out of true affections or if he had other motives, and there was no indications at any point about it either. There didn’t seem to be much chemistry between Taha and Imani, he was nice to her when they weren’t alone for absolutely no reason. It’s not even a bad thing if people are nice to someone for no reason, but it didn’t work in the context of this book. He was an a-hole towards Imani preceding their travels and there were no nuances to show he harboured feelings towards her.

Speaking of nuances, the writing in general was not good. It was so unnuanced, and had a very-in-your-face way about the narrative. There were heavy, heavy themes

ie. white colonisation and execution. These very controversial and sensitive topics are thrown in and there would have been no difference in writing “ooh here’s colonisation, it’s white and it makes me feel bad, and I don’t know why!”.

The author will benefit from learning how to string a story which has highs and lows, peaks and dips; basically shading. There were chapters where absolutely nothing happened, and when the pace picked up, it is just full of action. I mean there was something big happening in every single chapter, but relatively speaking, it didn’t seem like it amongst the nest of other chapters. Everything went wrong, something had to go wrong every chapter from where the action picked up. Additionally, there were so many flashback insertions that it minimised the plot.

Examples of bad writing from the book:

“He is hurting deeply and raising defensive walls to stop anyone from touching that open wound.”

“The weary impoverished hunch on the stoops of homes and flagging shops, smoking pipes, handling prayer beads, whiling the day away for lack of a viable alternative.”

“One of her kohl-lined eyes is the colour of wet clay and exudes hard judgment; the other is concealed by a black patch.”

“Curse him, he is a ship that capsized, no matter the gale. But I will try.”

Content Warnings

kirstenf's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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shannnne_reads_words's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.25

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