incipientdreamer's reviews
570 reviews

Buckle up everyone, because this is going to be a loong review. This book fueled my feminist rage and I was in a constantly ranty mode while reading this. A phenomenal debut; I cannot wait to read the sequel after that cliffhanger of an ending!

The Daughters of Izdihar was everything I wanted by a novel marketed as "two women's quest to fight for women's rights in an Egypt-inspired world with elemental magic". I have read a couple of fantasy books that tackle sexism on a large scale, centring on a group of women fighting for their basic human rights, and while I usually enjoy most of them, The Daughters of Izdihar hits home more than those other books. Part of the reason might be because the world feels so real and close to me. I grew up in a conservative South Asian Muslim country where religious dogma and extremism meant that women were treated as sub-human creatures. A lot of the struggles depicted in Elsbai's book are still rampant/normalized in countries such as my own. Not to mention the feminist revolution taking place in Iran is eerily similar to how the Daughters are treated in this book. Elsbai shows us the ugly truth of the patriarchal society we live in, a place where women are denied the right to vote, go out on their own, sign legal documents, and not be allowed to pursue education. This is the reality faced by women and young girls in Afghanistan and Saudia Arabia. Women who dare to speak out are jailed and beaten and abused.

Both of Elsbai's leading characters are unique perspectives on how sexism affects women differently depending on their social class. Nehal, a wealthy sheltered woman, who doesn't really care about the consequences of her actions because she has her wealth and privilege to fall back on is a study of how most rich women might not care about misogyny in society because they are so sheltered. Meanwhile, Giorgina coming from a poor household, and having no security in life has a more muted or hesitant perspective in fighting for her rights. Not to mention the numerous other members of the Daughters who each have their own circumstances and choose to fight their battles accordingly. I feel like depictions like this, show that there is no such thing as a bad feminist.

I loved the character development of both characters, how Nehal eventually opens her eyes to injustice, and how Giorgina finally gains the courage to live her own life, by stepping out of the shadow cast by her controlling father. Another thing I found interesting was how Nico, Giorgina's love interest was shown to be a very passive person when it came to matters that did not affect him that deeply. It showed the lack of initiative by many men who claim to be "allies".

This book is also unapologetically queer which given the community it's set in, hits painfully home for me. The writing is nothing extraordinary but for a debut book, I would say it's still pretty good given other recent debuts. The worldbuilding is lush and you can see the author's love for her culture in the way she describes the foods and architecture. The magic system is very Avatar-style elemental magic, and I'm excited to learn more about Nehal and Giorgina's growing powers in book two.

The Daughters of Izdihar takes the patriarchy and rips it to shreds. We desperately need more WOC writing books about feminism because they shed light on how underprivileged women in underdeveloped countries are still suffering. Unfortunately, the racist bias in the publishing industry is obvious, given the lack of marketing this book had. Seems like people only care about domestic violence when Collen Hoover rights about it...

Thank you to Netgalley and Little Brown Book Group for sending me an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own 

Hilarious

 This book couldn't decide what it wanted to be. Literary fiction or speculative fiction. The pacing is very slow for the first 50%, after that it does speed up a bit but most of the time I could not really care about what was going on. A lot of the conflict/plot seems forced. The character decisions made for the sake of plot propagation rather than logic always annoy me to no end. Also, for a book about adoption, there wasn't a lot of focus on Pepper and her adoptive moms' relationship. She seems to be adamant about finding her birth mother who never contacted/cared about her while her actual mothers that raised her are worried and she doesn't even manage to call them. Passages about "how this must be how it feels like between mothers and daughters" when Pepper thinks of Ula make no sense and seem to diminish adoptive parents. 

That question is at the centre of RFK's latest comedic thriller about racism, xenophobia and cancel culture. One thing is for sure, that right does not lie with June Hayward.
Yellowface distinctly differs from Kuang's previous work. It's more contemporary and commercial, a page-turner, popcorn fiction. Though at the end of the day, like most of her work it centres on the Chinese voice. The only difference is, in this case, Kuang chooses to highlight white tears from the lens of a twenty-something flop white author.

I absolutely ate this book up. I couldn't stop reading it and had to tear myself away at 4 am. Kuang deploys her witty and biting commentary on the hell that is the publishing industry and the internet. She leaves no room for excuses. No rationalizing or absolution of the kind of shit the main character pulls. It is this ruthless depiction of her protagonist/villain that makes Yellowface such a success. Kuang is not here to show the white allies like June, she is here to show the ugly bitter truth and she gives zero fucks how it will be perceived by a white audience. I have to mention that this isn't new for her work. Kuang's books are known for making the reader uncomfortable, by shedding light on to issues that the Twitteratis love to dissect and cancel people for. ironically enough the day I got approved for the ARC, there was this entire discourse on twt by white European readers on how "attacked" and "persecuted" they feel by Babel: An Arcane History.

Kuang also deftly handles the subject of cancel culture and how character assassinations leave everyone damaged with only the keyboard warriors and critics and bloggers victorious with their increased reach and engagement. It gets very meta at times, and a lot of the critiques that Athena Liu's work gets are similar to what Kuang's own work used to get, even a lot of the milestones achieved by Athena's character are similar to how Kuang herself is such a prodigy in the writing community. Yellowface also tackles the horrors of publishing and how racist, unfair and elitist it can be. How a book is declared a "bestseller" not on the merits of its writing/storytelling but because the publishers said it will be. The closed-door meetings are where the success or failure of a book is determined given how many diversity points it gets. Ultimately, no one gives a fuck about Own Voices or the visibility of marginalised communities in the industry. It's all about how it can be packaged to become the next Tick Tock phenomenon.

I can not wait for this book to be out in the world, to wallow in white tears and tormented Karens. Excited to see how this is unironically dissected in the court of public opinion. Will definitely be preordering this. Yellowface comes out May 2023.

Thank you to Netgalley, HarperCollins UK, and HarperFiction for sending me an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

 

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride is a love letter to fairy tales. It follows the fairy-tale aesthetic, logic, and even language. Roshani Chokshi is at her best with her adult debut, and I wonder why she doesn’t stick to this genre when it works wonders for her. This book did have its ups and does, and I do believe that the last few chapters really changed my mind about it.

Chokshi is one of those authors, whose books are choked full of purple prose, so readers who find that exhausting or slow might not appreciate her work. I’m not a huge fan of it either, but it really works here considering the type of story she wanted to tell. At its heart, Flower Bride is a gothic romance. And like most gothic romances, it must have a shady and mysterious spouse, an ancient house, secrets, and obsessive characters. At the start, I was reminded of Erin Morgenstern’s The Starless Sea (a book I decisively hated), but since I’d enjoyed Chokshi’s fairy-tale-type mythological YA novels from her early years, I was hopeful this might not disappoint as much. As I read on, I was reminded more and more of the works of the Bronte sisters. Think Mr. Rochester and his mad wife locked in the attic, think of Heathcliff and Catherine’s obsessive love that spanned generations and decades. And lastly, one of my favorite reads of the year These Violent Delightss by Micah Nevermeer (and yes, this is not THAT tvd. Get over yourself.). Indigo and Azure’s relationship is the likes of Paul and Julien’s. The only difference is Azure, and Indigo were never explicitly queer. The queer coding of most of the characters of this book is an essay for another time, but it plays a huge role in how the character dynamics play out.

And like most gothic stories, this was at the end of the day a book about monstrosity, horror, and love, all wrapped up in a nice little tragic package. I want to read more of Chokshi’s adult work if she ever gives it another try. For Flower Bride I enjoyed Azure and Indigo’s characterization, but I found the bridegroom’s character and storyline to be very lacking, especially the way his and Indigo’s relationship was rushed through. Indigo came across as his manic pixie dream girl during the entire courting phase and that wasn’t something I enjoyed.

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride comes out on the 14th of February 2023, Valentine's Day. And it is the perfect gift if you and your significant other love fairy tales, fucked up rich people and gothic mansions. Thank you to Netgalley and Hodder Books for sending me an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

 5 bloody stars
"It's a hellish world."
Tamsyn Muir's niche genre is writing fucked up zombie lesbians and she excels at it. This was very dark and had a lot of gore and bloodshed (can it be a Tamsyn Muir book without bones and gore?), and makes the other stories in this collection feel pretty tame. I found The Six Deaths of the Saint pretty dark, but Undercover is multiple leagues ahead.

I love how Muir's books are always a huge puzzle waiting to be solved. This one has its fair share of twists but being a veteran reader of her Locked Tomb books I was able to figure it out pretty early on. despite that, it was fun to spot the clues and gaslight myself 😂😂.

Definitely my favorite along with Alix E. Harrow's short story. Can never go wrong with either of these authors.