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carrieirwin 's review for:
The Gilded Ones
by Namina Forna
I was excited to receive a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!
I have a tendency to pick out books to read solely by looking at their covers, rarely reading the blurb. Let’s just say that the end of chapter two came as quite a surprise!
There was a lot to like about this book. It was fast-paced and jumped right into the story. The world building was seamlessly woven into the story, none of that non-so-thinly-veiled wise elder telling you about the past nonsense. In fact, every time Deka asks for an explanation, White Hands tells her that she’ll know when she needs to know. As readers, we end up in the same boat and in fact do learn things only when we need to know them.
This book tackles some big topics - the patriarchy, race, feminism - in a compelling and well-developed way. It did feel slightly heavy handed at times, but not in a way that was off putting. I really appreciated that the female characters in the books actually supported each other and the central concept of the alaki is based on empowering women.
One negative about this book for me was the romance. It was fairly easy to assume who the love interest would be, since Deka only regularly interacted with one male character. I suppose that I assumed something was going on off-screen, but there was very little tension and build up. When something finally happened, I didn’t find myself caring.
Overall, I’d recommend this book to anyone looking for a fast-paced fantasy novel that deals with real world issues (with a healthy dose of violence thrown in). I’ll be interested to see where the sequel takes it…
I have a tendency to pick out books to read solely by looking at their covers, rarely reading the blurb. Let’s just say that the end of chapter two came as quite a surprise!
There was a lot to like about this book. It was fast-paced and jumped right into the story. The world building was seamlessly woven into the story, none of that non-so-thinly-veiled wise elder telling you about the past nonsense. In fact, every time Deka asks for an explanation, White Hands tells her that she’ll know when she needs to know. As readers, we end up in the same boat and in fact do learn things only when we need to know them.
This book tackles some big topics - the patriarchy, race, feminism - in a compelling and well-developed way. It did feel slightly heavy handed at times, but not in a way that was off putting. I really appreciated that the female characters in the books actually supported each other and the central concept of the alaki is based on empowering women.
One negative about this book for me was the romance. It was fairly easy to assume who the love interest would be, since Deka only regularly interacted with one male character. I suppose that I assumed something was going on off-screen, but there was very little tension and build up. When something finally happened, I didn’t find myself caring.
Overall, I’d recommend this book to anyone looking for a fast-paced fantasy novel that deals with real world issues (with a healthy dose of violence thrown in). I’ll be interested to see where the sequel takes it…