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A review by revremishores
The Wild Ones by Nafiza Azad
3.0
This book had soooo much potential. I really enjoyed parts of it. Some of its strongest traits include the sisterhood aspect, the poetic language and quotes, how the cities are almost characters in the story, and the social issues that it deals with. Unfortunately, these strong traits were not well strung-together in a compelling plot.
I loved the sisterhood. Sometimes reading it felt like being invited to a big slumber party. So fun. But only one or two of the characters really felt developed. I understand why Azad didn't dwell on their trauma, but I think they could have had some character development without trauma details. As it was, I could hardly tell them apart.
Overall, I think this world/story would make a fantastic graphic novel or video game (or both!). The art is beautiful, and I would love to see more of it, depicting some of the jewelry and clothing and beautiful cities that were (a bit sparsely) described. It would also help to tell the characters apart without adding a ton of background.
I also think the adventure would lend itself well to a video game, the way you would have to explore the Between to look for certain doors, exchange the diamonds for currency, find the right people to talk to in each city... I think there is a lot of potential for that, and perhaps having agency in the story would help the fact that the plot was not very compelling in black-and-white print form.
I mention these alternatives only because I did truly think there was a lot to love about this book, but unfortunately the problems with the plot were too big for me to really say I enjoyed it or would recommend it to others.
I loved the sisterhood. Sometimes reading it felt like being invited to a big slumber party. So fun. But only one or two of the characters really felt developed. I understand why Azad didn't dwell on their trauma, but I think they could have had some character development without trauma details. As it was, I could hardly tell them apart.
Overall, I think this world/story would make a fantastic graphic novel or video game (or both!). The art is beautiful, and I would love to see more of it, depicting some of the jewelry and clothing and beautiful cities that were (a bit sparsely) described. It would also help to tell the characters apart without adding a ton of background.
I also think the adventure would lend itself well to a video game, the way you would have to explore the Between to look for certain doors, exchange the diamonds for currency, find the right people to talk to in each city... I think there is a lot of potential for that, and perhaps having agency in the story would help the fact that the plot was not very compelling in black-and-white print form.
I mention these alternatives only because I did truly think there was a lot to love about this book, but unfortunately the problems with the plot were too big for me to really say I enjoyed it or would recommend it to others.