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A review by jeannamarie
The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna
3.0
The Gilded Ones wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either.
Honesty, I lost interest in this book pretty quickly and put it down for a while. The world building was not the best and the synopsis in the back or inside cover did not prep me for the disappointment of the lack of world building. The redeeming quality of this book is the relationships between the female characters. Throughout the book those relationships only become stronger. There’s no competition or jealousy or pettiness, there’s only mad love between the female characters. This was refreshing, because so many times authors write tension between the female characters due to another third party character (typically a abnormally hot guy) and the lack of that, allowed the story to get more interesting. Women don’t need men to make their lives interesting.
However, I felt like the book did not really pick up until the last quarter of the book. There’s an element which is dangled in front of the reader that the world you know may or may not be real. Not sure if I’ve read too much in my life or YA books are becoming more obvious, but the “reveal” WAS NOT surprising. You see it few thousand miles away. Like the second or third chapter.
Overall, an okay debut for Namina Forna. Look forward to the sequel to find out what happens to these women.
Honesty, I lost interest in this book pretty quickly and put it down for a while. The world building was not the best and the synopsis in the back or inside cover did not prep me for the disappointment of the lack of world building. The redeeming quality of this book is the relationships between the female characters. Throughout the book those relationships only become stronger. There’s no competition or jealousy or pettiness, there’s only mad love between the female characters. This was refreshing, because so many times authors write tension between the female characters due to another third party character (typically a abnormally hot guy) and the lack of that, allowed the story to get more interesting. Women don’t need men to make their lives interesting.
However, I felt like the book did not really pick up until the last quarter of the book. There’s an element which is dangled in front of the reader that the world you know may or may not be real. Not sure if I’ve read too much in my life or YA books are becoming more obvious, but the “reveal” WAS NOT surprising. You see it few thousand miles away. Like the second or third chapter.
Overall, an okay debut for Namina Forna. Look forward to the sequel to find out what happens to these women.