Review: The Weavers of Alamaxa, by Hadeer Elsbai

The Daughters of Izdihar—a group of women fighting for the vote and against the patriarchal rule of Parliament—have finally made strides in having their voices heard...only to find them drowned out by the cannons of the fundamentalist Ziranis. As long as Alamaxa continues to allow for the elemental magic of the weavers—and insist on allowing an academy to teach such things—the Zirani will stop at nothing to end what they perceive is a threat to not only their way of life, but the entire world.
Two such weavers, Nehal and Giorgina, had come together despite their differences to grow both their political and weaving power. But after the attack, Nehal wakes up in a Zirani prison, and Giorgina is on the run in her besieged city. If they can reunite again, they can rally Alamaxa to fight off the encroaching Zirani threat. Yet with so much in their way—including a contingent of Zirani insurgents with their own ideas about rebellion—this will be no easy task. And the last time a weaver fought back, the whole world was shattered.

"Safe in the knowledge that she was powerful."

Hadeer Helsbai's The Weavers of Alamaxa is the hectic conclusion to the duology started with The Daughters of Izdihar. The novel picks up where the first book ended, and from there doesn't stop a moment, careening towards an ending that ties up all the loose threads but feels unearned because we didn't have time to really delve into the changing situations. Events take place at a fast pace, and the new characters and setting suffer from it. The first conflict of the novel gets resolved in the blink of an eye, in order to put all pieces on the board and proceed with a war that becomes too rushed as well.

A trilogy would have allowed this series to breathe; we could have spent the whole of the second novel at the Zirani court and in Zirani, to learn more about their people and have time to get interested in those characters. Instead, the rushed resolution means we care little for them when disaster strikes. The core characters from the first volume are of course exempt from this, and a tragic event is treated with the grace and attention it deserves. But the focus on the war means that all the things that made the first book so memorable - the political struggle and the battle for bodily and political authonomy - take the backseat.

The two POVs' journey, on the other hand, is well-executed: Nehal softens her edges as she learns the struggles of the poor, and she has a few memorable scenes; Giorgina undegoes a metamorphosis, going from a meek character to one who fights for what's right. Malak of course continues to stun with her political acumen and her strength, the remaining Daughters of Izdihar make their appearance, and Nico handles himself well; the Zirani monarchs, while underdeveloped, make for interesting villains. The worldbuilding suffers from the fast pace, but new information about the world gives a new perspective.

The Weavers of Alamaxa is a book that could have been more.

✨ 3.5 stars