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A review by fatimak
The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
3.5
This is a book that has been on many "most anticipated reads of 2021" lists. Fans of fantasy won't be disappointed by this unique, captivating story about a deeply patriarchal society where on their sixteenth birthday, girls are bled to determine whether their blood runs red, signalling them to be pure, or gold, marking them as unpure and thus sentencing them to death. When the main character Deka's blood runs gold, her life is flipped upside down as she's given the choice to remain in her village and submit to her fate or train to become part of a special army to defend the emperor and the kingdom from Deathshrieks, formidable creatures that pose a threat to the land. The book is filled with plenty of action and twists and turns, with an overall underlying message of the strength of women and fighting back against a patriarchal society that is threatened by that strength.
While I thought the concept of this story was pretty interesting and I liked the general themes and ideas, I unfortunately didn't quite enjoy the execution. I thought there were a lot of interesting concepts that could have been explored in more depth or gone in more interesting ways, but instead the story took a slightly predictable turn and the twist/revelation towards the end felt a little rushed and thrown together. This was the author’s debut novel and I actually thought the writing style wasn’t too bad, but I think the characters could have been better developed. The story is told from the main character, Deka's, perspective, but while we're in her head, I felt we didn’t really get much of a sense of her personality, and the other characters pretty much just exist as sidekicks to Deka. Britta was probably my favourite character, but I wish her character was explored a little further and given greater depth than just being devoted to Deka. Also, I found it slightly weird how Britta’s dialogue is written with an accent but literally no other character in the book is written as speaking with an accent, I felt like it threw things off a bit and was a bit distracting. Another issue I had was that there were a lot of info dumps, which is a real pet peeve of mine. As I said, I didn’t really mind the writer’s general writing style, so I wouldn’t necessarily let this put you off as I don’t think it affected the flow of the story necessarily, but I personally don’t like being told things through a monologue rather than it being shown through the characters figuring things out, but that was something I found happened a lot in this book.
There’s also a point to be made about the fact that this is a story about a society divided very strictly by gender but there is no discussion or suggestion of the existence of trans and non-binary people at all. There are a few throwaway lines in a single scene acknowledging a character’s non-heterosexual sexuality but that’s really the extent that this book delves into the realm of LGBTQ+ characters and themes. This was something I found particularly disappointing because I felt like Deka had zero chemistry with her love interest and the whole romance subplot felt beyond forced, whereas it would’ve been much more believable and satisfying if her love interest had been one of the alaki.
Despite all this, I'm hesitant to rate this any less than 3 stars because I acknowledge that I'm probably not the intended audience for this book. I admit I was excited to read it because of all the hype around the book, but really, I'm not much of a fan of fantasy (particularly not YA fantasy), which probably fed into my lack of enjoyment and the criticisms I had. However, I can see fantasy fans really enjoying this story and I really do think that generally, the author did a good job of coming up with such an interesting concept, and I really appreciate the existence of a YA fantasy that’s inspired by African culture and features a large cast of non-White characters. It seems as though this will be a series, so I’d be interested in seeing how the series develops as the author gets used to writing these characters and worlds.
I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
While I thought the concept of this story was pretty interesting and I liked the general themes and ideas, I unfortunately didn't quite enjoy the execution. I thought there were a lot of interesting concepts that could have been explored in more depth or gone in more interesting ways, but instead the story took a slightly predictable turn and the twist/revelation towards the end felt a little rushed and thrown together. This was the author’s debut novel and I actually thought the writing style wasn’t too bad, but I think the characters could have been better developed. The story is told from the main character, Deka's, perspective, but while we're in her head, I felt we didn’t really get much of a sense of her personality, and the other characters pretty much just exist as sidekicks to Deka. Britta was probably my favourite character, but I wish her character was explored a little further and given greater depth than just being devoted to Deka. Also, I found it slightly weird how Britta’s dialogue is written with an accent but literally no other character in the book is written as speaking with an accent, I felt like it threw things off a bit and was a bit distracting. Another issue I had was that there were a lot of info dumps, which is a real pet peeve of mine. As I said, I didn’t really mind the writer’s general writing style, so I wouldn’t necessarily let this put you off as I don’t think it affected the flow of the story necessarily, but I personally don’t like being told things through a monologue rather than it being shown through the characters figuring things out, but that was something I found happened a lot in this book.
There’s also a point to be made about the fact that this is a story about a society divided very strictly by gender but there is no discussion or suggestion of the existence of trans and non-binary people at all. There are a few throwaway lines in a single scene acknowledging a character’s non-heterosexual sexuality but that’s really the extent that this book delves into the realm of LGBTQ+ characters and themes. This was something I found particularly disappointing because I felt like Deka had zero chemistry with her love interest and the whole romance subplot felt beyond forced, whereas it would’ve been much more believable and satisfying if her love interest had been one of the alaki.
Despite all this, I'm hesitant to rate this any less than 3 stars because I acknowledge that I'm probably not the intended audience for this book. I admit I was excited to read it because of all the hype around the book, but really, I'm not much of a fan of fantasy (particularly not YA fantasy), which probably fed into my lack of enjoyment and the criticisms I had. However, I can see fantasy fans really enjoying this story and I really do think that generally, the author did a good job of coming up with such an interesting concept, and I really appreciate the existence of a YA fantasy that’s inspired by African culture and features a large cast of non-White characters. It seems as though this will be a series, so I’d be interested in seeing how the series develops as the author gets used to writing these characters and worlds.
I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death, Genocide, Murder, Torture, Violence, and Misogyny