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A review by ninegladiolus
The Daughters of Izdihar by Hadeer Elsbai
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
The Daughters of Izdihar by Hadeer Elsbai was pitched to me as a feminist fantasy story centering revolution with a sapphic romance, which is the premise I picked it up on. While this book ended up being not for me in the slightest, I can see it working for other readers with different tolerances than I have.
Two things made this novel a struggle for me personally. The first was that homophobia and misogyny were thoroughly baked into the worldbuilding, and at every turn, the main characters suffer for being women, being queer, or both, often at the hands of men spouting stereotypically villainous misogyny and/or homophobia. If there were any respite from the constant homophobia and misogyny, maybe I would have had an easier time, but from beginning to head, the text bludgeons the reader with it.
My other primary issue was character agency. Everything that moves the plot forward is a protagonist being victimized for being a woman, queer, or both, or stumbling into a contrived mistake that didn’t feel grounded in character work. Nehal and Giorgina rest at opposite ends of the extreme as far as rebellious and traditional personalities, and yet, neither actually manages to make any meaningful choices in their own life until the very end of the novel. This made for a personally frustrating reading experience.
The duology format does not serve this series well. The entire novel is one traumatic buildup to a moment that finally promises some sort of change or pivot in the story… but far too late, and far too abruptly. For being almost 400 pages of suffering, the build-up wasn’t worth it to me.
Finally, and though this is minor and a side note, this novel has a sapphic protagonist, but the WLW relationship depicted within is given very little page time and is subject to the same homophobia as the rest of the world. It’s possible this relationship could develop in the follow-up novel and be given more focus, but for this one, it is minor compared to the oppression and trauma.
If you’re a fantasy fan, enjoy women banding together against their oppressors, and have a high tolerance for homophobia and misogyny as central worldbuilding elements, you may enjoy this book a great deal more than I did.
Thank you to Harper Voyager and Edelweiss for an advance review copy. All opinions are my own.
Two things made this novel a struggle for me personally. The first was that homophobia and misogyny were thoroughly baked into the worldbuilding, and at every turn, the main characters suffer for being women, being queer, or both, often at the hands of men spouting stereotypically villainous misogyny and/or homophobia. If there were any respite from the constant homophobia and misogyny, maybe I would have had an easier time, but from beginning to head, the text bludgeons the reader with it.
My other primary issue was character agency. Everything that moves the plot forward is a protagonist being victimized for being a woman, queer, or both, or stumbling into a contrived mistake that didn’t feel grounded in character work. Nehal and Giorgina rest at opposite ends of the extreme as far as rebellious and traditional personalities, and yet, neither actually manages to make any meaningful choices in their own life until the very end of the novel. This made for a personally frustrating reading experience.
The duology format does not serve this series well. The entire novel is one traumatic buildup to a moment that finally promises some sort of change or pivot in the story… but far too late, and far too abruptly. For being almost 400 pages of suffering, the build-up wasn’t worth it to me.
Finally, and though this is minor and a side note, this novel has a sapphic protagonist, but the WLW relationship depicted within is given very little page time and is subject to the same homophobia as the rest of the world. It’s possible this relationship could develop in the follow-up novel and be given more focus, but for this one, it is minor compared to the oppression and trauma.
If you’re a fantasy fan, enjoy women banding together against their oppressors, and have a high tolerance for homophobia and misogyny as central worldbuilding elements, you may enjoy this book a great deal more than I did.
Thank you to Harper Voyager and Edelweiss for an advance review copy. All opinions are my own.