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A review by fuzzyhebrew
The Wild Ones by Nafiza Azad
adventurous
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This is a great YA novel and I would recommend it for those readers. The message is really hammered home and not subtle at all, but that is totally ok with me because the book never tried to be subtle. It was shouting from the rooftops that it was about healing sisterhood and trauma, and it gave that 100%. I didn't even hate the romance, I liked both of the characters and felt that they were not toxic to each other.
The reason the rating is not higher is because sometimes I felt the book was holding your hands too much. YA readers are not dumb, and they don't need to be told things that they were just shown moments before. For example, in one scene the sisters are told that to get Taraana his powers he needs to bond with a door, which probably means bleeding on it. So then in the next scene one of the characters says something like "so do you think we should go bleed on a bunch of doors?" I just feel like that discussion didn't need to be in there, the readers know that is what the characters are going to do and it didn't add anything.
I also found the magic council very jarring. It was a piece of the real world politics that didn't really fit with the rest of the middle world. In general the worldbuilding did not hit home for me.
I agree with other readers that making this into a series could be interesting, where we learn more about the other sisters.
The reason the rating is not higher is because sometimes I felt the book was holding your hands too much. YA readers are not dumb, and they don't need to be told things that they were just shown moments before. For example, in one scene the sisters are told that to get Taraana his powers he needs to bond with a door, which probably means bleeding on it. So then in the next scene one of the characters says something like "so do you think we should go bleed on a bunch of doors?" I just feel like that discussion didn't need to be in there, the readers know that is what the characters are going to do and it didn't add anything.
I also found the magic council very jarring. It was a piece of the real world politics that didn't really fit with the rest of the middle world. In general the worldbuilding did not hit home for me.
I agree with other readers that making this into a series could be interesting, where we learn more about the other sisters.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse
Children are often sold and bought in this book