Reviews tagging 'Biphobia'

The Daughters of Izdihar by Hadeer Elsbai

3 reviews

bonriki's review

challenging emotional inspiring slow-paced

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

3.0

This is a book that I read and I have no real feelings about it. Reads like YA despite being adult fantasy, it’s overly simplistic.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Biphobia, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual assault, Police brutality, Lesbophobia, and Classism

Moderate: Homophobia

wishbea's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

2.0

I nearly DNFed this book but since it's so short and I was already halfway through I decided to finish it. It wasn't the book I was expecting, I was told it was like Avatar the Last Airbender in an Egyptian-inspired fantasy world and therefore was expecting a major focus on the magic aspect. However this is a book primarily focused on politics, women's suffrage, class and female weavers stuggling to control their abilities.

As other reviews have said, the magic system is the exact same as bending in ATLA. A certain plot point was taken directly from ATLA. 

There is a reveal where the waterweaver main character Nehal  accidentally bloodweaves and bloodweaving is highly forbidden and kept secret, I'm pretty sure the reason she gets kidnapped at the end of the book is because she is a bloodweaver and she is going to be used by the enemy kingdom as a weapon.

Which unfortunately made the magic aspect fairly dull because it was too derivative, I expected inspired by ATLA not exactly the same system.

Nehal was a very irritating character, highly stubborn and I found her impossible to like as she appears to be completely disconnected from reality, failing to understand the consequences of her actions and only proceeds to get even angrier when things don't go her way. Nico barely felt like a character, he has somewhat progressive opinions in this world but he just does whatever the plot is asking of him and most of the time he's just pining after Giorgina. Giorgina was the most interesting character to me because she is far more grounded in reality than Nehal and Nico are, however she wasn't compelling.

I am not invested enough in these characters or this world to have any interest in reading the upcoming second book in this duology. Absolutely nothing is resolved by the end of this book, it is all just setup for the next book so don't expect a satisfying ending going into this.

On the positive side, I enjoyed reading a book where the setting is inspired by Egypt, the descriptions of the clothing were fascinating and the political ideas were interesting but the themes weren't married together well.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Misogyny, and Sexism

Moderate: Biphobia, Homophobia, Violence, Lesbophobia, and Classism

Minor: Gun violence, Kidnapping, Grief, Abortion, and War

ender24's review against another edition

adventurous emotional informative mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Religious bigotry, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Lesbophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Outing, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism