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