Welcome to my Mini-reviews! Though I would want to devote myself to going all-in with every book, I can't. But because I love books, and I love analyzing them, I wanted to make a smaller excerpt of what I think would be this book in a nutshell. Without further ado, let's dive in!
To make introductions short, this book is about a huntress who pretends to be a man for her survival and that of her people, because, of course, women can't hunt in this world without being forcefully persecuted. Due to her amazing skills, though, she then later gets thrust into an adventure to restore magic to the land, and bam, you got the gist of her journey.
This is why, when I first started, I couldn't keep my excitement down. It all held tons of promise; the world was believable and real, the writing was almost poetry, and the characters were interesting enough to keep wanting to know about their lives. In short, it was a very, very, well-written start.
Then, things got complicated. The book kept mentioning how the huntress was so good at what she did, and how the horrible forest, the Arz, was about to swallow the world whole. Paragraph by paragraph, and sentence by sentence, it started becoming repetitive. But no matter, I progressed with faith. And though I was entertained by the character interactions across the pages, I began to see how issues started resolving themselves due to magic.
This world’s Deus Ex Machina turned out to be dressed in silver and named 'Witch'. Whenever someone needed to be somewhere, magic happened. Whenever a character needed to know something, again, magic happened.
And I forgave because ultimately, I wanted to get to the end. This became too much after a while, however, and the story started to lag and drag to a fault. Stakes began to feel less real, and the story showed the structure behind it. It was obvious when the author needed certain things to happen to make character arcs possible or make the midpoint a place to change things unexpectedly, among others.
Spoiler: To name one example of the magic resolving dire problems, the Arz suddenly disappears by said witch's command, so that the protagonists can cross to the other side. All when the forest is portrayed as indestructible, ever-growing, and impossible to get rid of. End of spoiler.
The positives?
I’d say they are many.
Worldbuilding is a first. The setting is described to perfection; you can feel how every inch of this world has Arabic inspiration—from words to landscapes. You feel the sand on your skin or the spices in the food, not to mention the heat of the ever-present sun.
And that reminds me, the writing is beautiful.
The way the author shows character banter, or how she expresses people’s emotions, and the overall occurrences in the book… all warrants tons of praise.
Even with the themes, she manages to talk about feminism in a way that empowers and questions male supremacy. Sadly though, I feel this made the book feel less realistic. Not because it empowers, but because the stakes almost disappear as a result. And in a way that doesn’t seem cohesive.
Spoiler: The Huntress is forced to dress as a man to avoid death or punishment, but people keep questioning her choice to stay safe, instead of acknowledging the danger she’s in as if nothing would go wrong once she embraces her true self. When she does and decides to reveal her secret, nothing happens as a result, as if no stakes had ever existed. End of spoiler.
There also seems to be some questioning of power structures here, though I can’t tell where the series is going, so I’ll leave it at that. This book is critical, and it has the potential to tell a story that breaks us from the things we tend to think are normal.
Even if just for a bit.
In summary:
Was it Good? ❌
Was it Critical? ✔
Did it Challenge norms? Can't know yet!
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