Reviews tagging 'War'

The Daughters of Izdihar by Hadeer Elsbai

17 reviews

bea_reads_books's review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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dejahentendu's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful sad medium-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes

4.0

Pretty solid. Set in a fantasy Egypt (?), Elsbai details the lives of several women struggling for legal equality in a deeply misogynistic society. Each has their own reasons and their own methods, and watching them claim their power was beautiful. The magic isn't terribly innovative, but does it have to be? The point was revolution and growth!

LGBTQIA positive but with homophobia as well

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nikkihill22's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I liked this story, but found myself frustrated with most of the characters, particularly Nehal who has never once thought about restraint or prudence. The world was engaging, and I’ll probably read the next book too. I also find there wasn’t really much progress made, it feels like the characters mostly ended the story the way they started it, as far as their thoughts and perspectives go. 

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kirchnerkd's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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

4.5


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tamarina's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense fast-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

5.0


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fairyollie's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful inspiring reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

I cannot believe this is a debut novel! it is a stunning, emotional, empowering, hopeful, absolutely masterful work about equity and equality and how the oppression of one is the oppression of all. I am so relieved that the sequel comes out soon because I need more Alamaxa in my life pronto

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bookishmillennial's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional reflective sad
disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial

The fantasy worldbuilding totally reminded me of Avatar: The Last Airbender (only because of recency bias, I just watched the new Netflix TV show lol), but I recognize that not every world built upon elements like earth, air, fire and water are only derivative of ATLA. ATLA does not own the copyright and was not the first to do that, I know that! I'm just saying the "weaving" reminded me of it, that's all!

Anyway, I do think the messaging of this women's suffrage movement was extremely heavy handed. Most of the examples of the sexism were overtly sexist and loudly misogynistic. Not too many subdued or covert behaviors displayed, which are sometimes helpful to illustrate too, to show how the patriarchy operates in such insidious ways! However, I didn't find the on-the-nose telling to be exhausting or unnecessary. We need things spelled out sometimes, and that's okay! 

This book sets up Nehal and Giorgina's stories (they act a bit like foils against each other) perfectly for the next book in the duology, which I am excited to read! I have the arc so I can't wait to see how this all wraps up! 

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saphfics's review against another edition

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

3.25

Prepare to be frustrated a lot by all the characters, and especially the men of the cast. 

I think the author did a decent job with writing a very patriarchal society and the different effects it can have on very differen  women. As well as how the (lack of) privileges different characters have will change how they approach the issue of women's right. The worlbuilding of the cityitself was quite vivid but when it comes to the religion I was left with many questions

At times it felt very on the nose with the way it handled its themes and there was a lot of repetition. Mostly to contrast the two main characters which again felt very on the nose. The story does delve I to why the two are so different and I do appreciate that. 

I do feel like the two mains were very distinctive and had their own distinctive voices. However there was an imbalance to how much screen time I felt each of them were getting. Especially in the beginning. Which kind of makes me sad because I feel like we lost some characterization for both that character and the daughters of izdihar as a whole.  

All around a pretty engaging read, mostly towards the end. I will read the next book to see how it ends

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katbenimble's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional inspiring tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

My biggest complaint about this book is that the sequel isn't our 🤣😭.
Overall, I loved the characters and the magic and also the revolution piece.  Will be very interested to see where the story goes in book 2!

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wishbea's review against another edition

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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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