Review: The Daughters of Izdihar, by Hadeer Elsbai

 

As a waterweaver, Nehal can move and shape any water to her will, but she's limited by her lack of formal education. She desires nothing more than to attend the newly opened Weaving Academy, take complete control of her powers, and pursue a glorious future on the battlefield with the first all-female military regiment. But her family cannot afford to let her go--crushed under her father's gambling debt, Nehal is forcibly married into a wealthy merchant family. Her new spouse, Nico, is indifferent and distant and in love with another woman, a bookseller named Giorgina.
Giorgina has her own secret, however: she is an earthweaver with dangerously uncontrollable powers. She has no money and no prospects. Her only solace comes from her activities with the Daughters of Izdihar, a radical women's rights group at the forefront of a movement with a simple goal: to attain recognition for women to have a say in their own lives. They live very different lives and come from very different means, yet Nehal and Giorgina have more in common than they think. The cause--and Nico--brings them into each other's orbit, drawn in by the group's enigmatic leader, Malak Mamdouh, and the urge to do what is right.

The revolution is coming. Hadeer Elsbai's The Daughters of Izdihar is set in a middle-eastern world brimming with injustice: women don't have any power, homophobia is rampant, and magic users aren't seen favorably, especially when they're women. The setting, while a bit generic in the premise, shines with the execution, painting a vivid picture brimming with details that make the world feel realistic. The struggle of suffrage is explored through the eyes of the two protagonists, each of them coming from different backgrounds, each oppressed in their own way. The plot thickens when another country joins the fray, its representatives bent on influencing the oppressive policies to a stronger degree.

The protagonists couldn't be more different in temperament: one is fierce and temperamental, the other is more passive. But they are both engaging characters, battling with the respective problems and finding common ground. They are not, however, the main couple of the book; I've seen this book being advertised that way in some circles - in truth, that's how it came to my attention - but that's not really correct. While one of the characters, Nehal, does have a sweet wlw romance, it's not with her co-protagonist, but with a third party, an intriguing character that I hope to see more of in the sequel and final book of the duology.

The romance isn't really a focus of the book, though; while it leads to some exploration of what it means to be queer in this world, adding to the oppression already explored, it's more on the background. The book is more focused on the battle for bodily and political authonomy and on the daily oppression faced by women, even picturing an examination to determine a character's virginity in a disturbing but thankfully not too detailled scene.

The Daughters of Izdihar is a solid first book that sets the stage for an intriguing conclusion.

✨ 3.5 stars

Review: Bestiary, by K-Ming Chang

 

One evening, Mother tells Daughter a story about a tiger spirit who lived in a woman’s body. She was called Hu Gu Po, and she hungered to eat children, especially their toes. Soon afterwards, Daughter awakes with a tiger tail. And more mysterious events follow: Holes in the backyard spit up letters penned by her grandmother; a visiting aunt arrives with snakes in her belly; a brother tests the possibility of flight. All the while, Daughter is falling for Ben, a neighborhood girl with strange powers of her own. As the two young lovers translate the grandmother’s letters, Daughter begins to understand that each woman in her family embodies a myth–and that she will have to bring her family’s secrets to light in order to change their destiny.

Unfortunately, this wasn't for me. K-Ming Chang's Bestiary is a diaspora novel permeated with magical realism and overflowing with folk tales. I was really entranced with the subject matter, but the language used was too much of a barrier; it was a constant flow of imagery that described bodily fluids, or compared things to bodily fluids, and it got to the point where I couldn't stand it anymore. The prose is very creative and poetic, but the imagery wasn't working for me. I don't want to say it should be sanitized, it was obviously a precise choice by the author.

The author also wrote that she "wanted to write a story about queerness not as a source of pain but as something that saves her [Daughter] life". The girl's relationship with Ben is a beacon of light in the darkness of the novel, which also features generational abuse and, in general, dark subject matters.

Bestiary is a queer tale of diaspora that had some really upsetting imagery.

✨ 3 stars

Review: Lady Hotspur, by Tessa Gratton

 

Hal was once a knight, carefree and joyous, sworn to protect her future queen Banna Mora. But after a rebellion led by her own mother, Caleda, Hal is now the prince of Lionis, heir to the throne. The pressure of her crown and bloody memories of war plague her, as well as a need to shape her own destiny, no matter the cost.
Lady Hotspur, known as the Wolf of Aremoria for her temper and warcraft, never expected to be more than a weapon. She certainly never expected to fall in love with the fiery Hal or be blindsided by an angry Queen’s promise to remake the whole world in her own image—a plan Hotspur knows will lead to tragedy.
Banna Mora kept her life, but not her throne. Fleeing to Innis Lear to heal her heart and plot revenge, the stars and roots of Innis Lear will teach her that the only way to survive a burning world is to learn to breathe fire.

“The arrow of her heart forever pointed there.” Tessa Gratton's Lady Hotspur is a queer fantasy gender-swapped retelling of Shakespeare's Henry IV, set a few centuries after another book, The Queens of Innis Lear, another shakespearian retelling; events of the previous book are mentioned quite a few times, but I was able to easily follow even if I never read the first one. The retelling follows closely enough the plot of Henry IV before veering towards a gentler end than the play's, where the magical aspects of the novel also take center stage in stunning and lyrical moments of courage and sacrifice.

First and foremost, it's a tale of women trying to carve their place in the world. The narration takes its time to make us really know the characters, to make us love them and be vexed by them; it doesn't shy away from making them complex and real. The love story at the center of the novel is quite complicated, marred by conflicted loyalties and political machinations; revenge and betrayal move the plot along for a good portion of the story.

What starts as a subplot with more magical elements - and even features some (very tragic) mlm representation and truly heartbreaking moments - then takes center stage as the war for the crown becomes a war to reunite the magic of two lands that were torn from each other ages before, a war to return balance to the world. The magic of the island of Innis Lear is feral and dangerous in parts, elemental and grounded in the earth; it's broken because it's separated from the land it once came from. The deeds done to achieve balance will shape the course of the war.

Queer readers should be advised that, while two of the three female protagonists share a beautiful romance, the above political machinations also include political marriages to continue the dinasty and, in one instance, the union of a lesbian character with a man. While potentially triggering, the matter is treated with respect and little detail; it helps that the man in that relationships gets a few chapters from his point of view and is depicted as a respectful character, willing to compromise. That's really the only thing that didn't make me give this full 5 stars, because I did end up feeling queasy at times.

Lady Hotspur is a complicated tale of love and revenge, perfect for Shakespeare lovers.

✨ 4.5 stars

Review: The Raven and the Reindeer, by T. Kingfisher

 

When Gerta’s friend Kay is stolen away by the mysterious Snow Queen, it’s up to Gerta to find him. Her journey will take her through a dangerous land of snow and witchcraft, accompanied only by a bandit and a talking raven. Can she win her friend’s release, or will following her heart take her to unexpected places?

What a lovely way to begin the new year! T. Kingfisher's The Raven and the Reindeer is a perfect retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s "Snow Queen", drawing on the original but giving it its own spin, adding more depth and grounding it more to reality while also enriching the supernatural aspects of the fairy tale. At a little more than 200 pages, it's a delightful novella that ends with the timeless simplicity of fairy tales, giving the reader just enough information to glimpse the happily ever after.

The book truly shines in the worldbuilding: there are talking animals - each species with such distinctive voices - and stunning bits of sacrificial magic, and two long passages about the deep connections of roots and plants and their dark, hungry power; but, also, their gentleness. Gerta moves about with her big heart and her simple kindness, gathering allies all the while and almost losing herself in the reindeer skin. There's a brutality in some scenes, eerie and necessary; in the butchering, in the knife freeing her every night.

Her relationship with Janna, a nameless servant in the original, develops organically enough. There's perhaps a touch of discomfort in the beginning, when Gerta is held captive, but the author is quick to move on and show the differences with Gerta's hopeless infuatation of Kai. Like in the original, Kai doesn't have a heart and treats her abysmally, but here it's not anyone's fault but his own; he's just a standoffish, cruel kid, more interested in his puzzles. Janna is a well-rounded character, not perfect but certainly kinder, with a dark past of her own that gives her depth.

The Raven and the Reindeer is a great retelling of a cult classic, better than the original.

✨ 3.5 stars

List: Most Anticipated Books of 2023 - January to June

To usher in the new year, I thought it would be fun to also write down my most anticipated books for next year. I'll list five now, all books coming out in the first half of the year, and I'll probably make another list next summer. 

I'll put them in order of publication.

 

 Publication Date: January 10th 2023

HERE you can find the Goodreads page. 

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Publication Date: February 28th 2023

HERE you can find the Goodreads page. 

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Publication Date: March 7th 2023

HERE you can find the Goodreads page.

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Publication Date: May 9th 2023

HERE you can find the Goodreads page.

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Publication Date: May 9th 2023 

HERE you can find the Goodreads page.