This book weaved together magic and topics that any reader will understand. I absolutely loved it and can't wait for the next in the series to see what happens to the characters.

I was holy convinced that this book would be one of my favorites for the year but I was extremely disappointed.

There are so many elements that drew me to the story: women's rights, a setting outside of the U.S. (Egypt), magical elements, and yet, these elements felt generic and boring. The magic system is suspiciously similar to ATLA, but even if that was not the case, all the other promises from the premise just fall flat.

If you've never read a book that talks about women's right from a fantastical perspective, then maybe this will wow you, but I can't see that happening.

While this book was slow to start, it sunk its claws into me by the end! The magic system is so intriguing, and the author masterfully wove in philosophical discussion of revolutionary politics. Both of the main characters are so endearing and I'm excited to see their individual arcs continue through the next book.

This was a pretty average fantasy novel. I wasn't aware that it was a YA when I requested it, which is my fault, but I did enjoy all the anger

Thank you to Avon and Harper Voyager, Harper Voyager for sending me an eCopy of The Daughters of Izdihar!

Political intrigue, MAGIC!, sapphic romance, and BADASS WOMEN EXUDING FEMININE RAGE!

Full review coming soon, but you are gonna want this book!

Buy it for the cover, read it for the non-eurocentric and compelling plot and characters. Stunning through and through, I couldn’t put it down.

This book was a brilliant debut from Elsbai. There's political intrigue. There's magic. There's empowerment. Truly the idea of responsibility us beautifully explored in this book and feels particularly appropriate for the time. My one complaint is that the ending was such a cliffhanger, and now I have to wait for the sequel.

3.5 stars but rounding up for review

To be honest, I found myself extremely annoyed for the first 60% of this book. Both fmc were annoying. Nehal was so selfish and a tad naive while Giorgina
had a lot of internal conflict. Although I found them annoying, I thought their struggles were authentic, relevant and interesting given their family dynamics. I also enjoyed how their characters develop. The conflict they had to experience was perfectly done and I’m really looking forward to how the story continues and what’s next for the ladies.

Other thoughts: there were a lot of characters to keep up with but I enjoyed what personality each of them brought. The men were horrible and Elsbai deserves credit for authenticity. There was also a lot of repetitive description ie “wide dark eyes”, a little variety or less description would have been okay.

The Daughters of Izdihar tells the stories of two young women with magical powers who come from vastly different backgrounds and whose lives converge as they fight for female liberation and their right to use the powers they possess.

What stood out to me most is the author's development of characters. I appreciate heroines who are flawed, and there were moments in this book where I was so frustrated with Nehal in particular that I wanted to scream at her - she was beautifully irritating, bullheaded, rash, and unaware of her own privilege as she made plenty of judgement calls that hurt her and those around her. Giorgina on the other hand worries constantly about the perception of others and allows the men in her life to dictate her actions for far too long before finally snapping in a very destructive (and satisfying) way. This is such a refreshing departure from the many irritatingly perfect main characters we see in YA lit right now, and gives the author room to develop both characters in future books (again, something I feel like we've lost in a lot of books at the moment).

The Daughters of Izdihar is a great addition to modern fantasy/YA lit, and I'm looking forward to book 2. Thank you to Hadeer Elsbai, NetGalley, and Avon and Harper Voyager for giving me an e-ARC!

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review!~

4.5/5 stars - rounded up to 5 stars

The Daughter's of Izdihar by Hadeer Elsbai follows our two protagonists, Nehal and Giorgina. Two very different women who are forcibly brought into each other's lives. Nehal is being sold to Nico, the richest man in the city, via arranged marriage. Nehal thinks he's nice, but that's about it. Upon seeing him again, she finds out he's in love with another woman - what luck! She realizes she can use this information as leverage to get into the Weaving Academy, something women can only do with signed approval from their husband/father and with a large sum of cash. Giorgina is Nico's beloved, but unlike Nehal, she's meerly a commoner. The two end up finding that, they might be able to get along after all.

The whole book is shown from an alternating dual POV of two very different women, that actually have quite a lot in common. I absolutely adored this book, but my GOD did it make me so full of rage. If you love Avatar the Last Air Bender and specifically Katara/Toph - this book is for you. Nehal is Katara to a tee if you add the "I can do what I want" attitude of Toph. I would argue it's almost unbearably frustrating how often she doesn't think before she acts, but you can hardly blame her considering her reasonings for doing so. This book is full of feminine rage, but it's also missing any sort of resolution for the causes of that rage. I feel that the next book will help alleviate us of all the loose ends, but we didn't get anything to tide us over. The cliff hanger is a CRIME. Regardless, I am thoroughly looking forward to the next book - I just wish it wasn't so far away!

This book had really interesting worldbuilding and plot development, but the characters fell flat for me. I really loved the historical comparison to the suffragette movement in the western world and the continuous questions of peace vs. violence when it comes to fighting for rights. Both main characters served an important purpose, however both of them felt one-dimensional. The sapphic aspect was okay, however everyone placed Malak on such a pedestal that she felt inhuman and the relationship did essentially nothing for me. Maybe that tearing down will occur in the second book, but right now Malak's character frustrated me the most. The writing was good, I just wish more time had been invested into character growth and relationships.

i’m… whelmed, i guess?

there are elements of the daughters of izdihar that really appeal to me, namely the egyptian-inspired fantasy world, the sidestepping of the love triangle i was expecting, and the women’s suffrage storyline, but the whole book feels very YA for an adult fantasy.

nehal in particular reminded me of a YA protagonist: impulsive, immature, inexplicably The Best at weaving despite very little training. i preferred the other MC, giorgina, but even she is underdeveloped, as is the magic system that both women practice. the dialogue is so stilted and unnatural that i found it difficult to invest in any of the relationships—although i did enjoy the burgeoning friendship between nehal and nico—and i found the sapphic subplot and queer side character particularly lacking. the sapphic relationship borders on instalove and the side character vanishes for most of the book only to conveniently reappear at the very end.

for me, this read like a paint-by-numbers YA fantasy—not an unpleasant read, but not at all memorable either.

Hadeer Elsbai’s debut novel, The Daughters of Izdihar, has a terrific premise: it’s an Egyptian-inspired fantasy novel following two women – an aristocrat and a poor bookseller – in their shared pursuit of women’s suffrage and education on how to wield their magical powers.

Nehal and Giorgina are brought together under less than ideal circumstances. Nehal has been pressured into a marriage of convenience to Giorgina’s illicit lover. Nevertheless, they find themselves thrown together through their shared membership in the organization, Daughters of Izdihar, as they fight for women’s rights.

At first I mistook this novel for a YA novel, because Nehal is extremely hotheaded and impetuous and Giorgina feels a bit lost, not having yet come into her own. Further, the scope of Elsbai’s novel is fairly ambitious, so it took quite some time for the main characters to be thrown together and united in their shared cause. However, at the 75% mark, the pace majorly accelerated and I became glued to my audiobook.

Thank you to Harper Voyager and NetGalley for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review. The Daughters of Izdihar is out now!

THE DAUGHTERS OF IZDIHAR pulled me in with its intriguing premise, creative inspiration, and strong feminist ethos, but unfortunately didn’t quite live up to my hopes.

The good: i was intrigued by the concepts that the story was built on, the Egypt-inspired setting, and i felt that the plot was engaging; the first half moved a little slower, but there was a lot of setting/character establishment work to be done, and it didn’t bother me. Things really picked up later on, and we were left with an ending that basically guaranteed that I’ll be reading the next book, because I absolutely want to know what happens!

The not-as-good: unfortunately, the characters were really where this book fell flat for me. Nehal and Giorgina, our POV characters, both felt underdeveloped and one-dimensional; they each had one character trait which kind of “took over” their personality. There was some moving away from this at the end; honestly, I think I’ll have to read the second book before making a final call on how the character development progressed. The side characters also fell flat for me; because of this, there was a moment which should have felt really emotionally impactful but instead … wasn’t.

Despite some reservations, I am looking looking forward to (and will be reading) the second book in this duology, and would recommend giving it a shot if you’re intrigued by the premise. Thanks to Harper Voyager and Netgalley for the ARC!

A fiercely feminist SWANA inspired fantasy that explores class and social hierarchies. I’m excited to see where the story will go in the next book!

I absolutely LOVED this book and I absolutely adored Nehal! Both Giorgina and Nehal were wonderfully well written and interesting characters, but I really enjoyed Nehal’s “I will not hesitate to call you out on your bullshit” attitude. Also the fact that she comments on every pretty woman that crosses her path.

I was a little hesitant about the marriage plot point but the way that Nehal and Nico go from tentative allies to the partnership they have by the end of the book is great. The acknowledgment that neither of them wanted to be married to each other but can help each other get things they want was so much fun to read about.

This book does a great job of covering a lot of important topics from women’s rights in general, voting rights for women, abortions, purity culture, wealthy privilege, etc.

The wait for the next book to come out will be worth it, I have no doubt!

Thank you to NetGalley for making this available in exchange for an honest review.

Nahel is the daughter of a nobleman who wants nothing more than to join the Academy and fight in the military. But she discovers that she is going to be married off to help her family’s finances. Giorgina is from a poor family, and she spends her time working at a bookshop and fundraising for the Daughters of Izdihar, an activist group for women’s rights. The paths of the two women begin to converge as they find themselves both struggling to learn about their magic and to fight for their rights.

I loved the setting of this work. The author did an excellent job incorporating cultural details as well as details of the surrounding world into the narrative without it ever feeling like an info-dump. However, I wanted a bit more from the worldbuilding, especially more details concerning the magic, its origins. Furthermore, the parameters of the world weren’t clearly established – the beginning of the work made this feel like a traditional fantasy world, but then there was a casual mention of traveling by rail/train, and decidedly modern dialogue.

The characters were well written and had great depth and development. Despite Nehal being hard-headed and a bit spoiled, it was impossible not to like her. There wasn’t much romance included in the work although there was a love triangle (which was surprisingly well done and added much needed depth/tension to the plot!). That being said, I did feel that there wasn’t much plot in this work. Plenty of things happened that were interesting and added to the characters and the world, but it was light on plot overall.

4.5


This book really griped me from the first sentence. Nehal is such a bold, fun character to follow. But I also loved Giorgia, a character who kept her head down to survive. Giorgia and Nehal’s story where perfectly woven (pun intended) together from the first chapters. It’s a story of the struggles women have to go through, told through two unique points of view. It’s fantastical, but at the same time very relevant to real world politics. In short, it’s fighting for women’s rights, with Magic, and sapphics, what else could you want?

I started my ARC of this late, and I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to finish it before the release date. However that wasn’t an issue, as I absolutely flew through it in less than a week (though I didn’t post this until now due to the Harper Collins strike)

It’s fast paced, though I wish it had slowed down just a bit so I could get to know the characters and world more. The other part that I wish was fleshed out more was the world building. Weaving is a cool concept, and I love the small bits we got at the academy. How it all worked just needed more detail.

Overall a fantastic debut. I can’t wait to see what happens in the sequel.

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperVoyager for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really liked this debut! Elsbai did an excellent job creating an alternate world Egypt, and I loved how lived-in Alamaxa felt, and you can tell that Elsbai knows her world extremely well. I also thought she did an excellent job at creating the magic (those born with magic are called weavers), which is reminiscent of Avatar the Last Airbender. The magic also created a nice tension within the story, as the political backdrop is both about women’s suffrage and anti-weaver sentiments, and there is a looming war in part due to the existence of weavers.

The Daughters of Izdihar follows Nehal, who is an upper class waterweaver that wants to join the army but is forced to get married, and Giorgina, who is a working class earthweaver who fears her ability and is fairly involved with the Daughters of Izdihar. Early on, their connection is established by Nico, who is Nehal’s betrothed and Giorgina’s husband. Nehal is rash and outspoken where Giorgina is anxious and thoughtful, and both feel very realistic. Their internal struggles are wonderfully presented (Giorgina’s especially), and I quite like how all of the interpersonal relationships are handled—to me, this is where the novel really shines.

I will say Nehal’s perspective was challenging to get through as many of her decisions completely lacked political savvy or clever thinking. I don’t think this is a detriment, because she still feels incredibly real, she’s just also a very frustrating person and Elsbai did a good job at showcasing that. It is hard, though, to watch her try to bulldoze through a situation that requires a bit of tact or at least a deeper understanding of the issue at hand. I also think that Elsbai generally captured the sheer rage these characters feel at their situations very well.

I do wish that the prose was a little more… complex? At times while reading I felt it to be a smidgen simplistic and young, and did not quite match up to the content of the writing. I think more than anything that’s just a case of this being a debut, and I’m certain these rough patches will be smoothed over in Elsbai’s future works. Either way, this was a really good debut and an excellent story, and definitely one worth a try.

From very early on in this book, I knew it was special. And as I read it, my obsession with it only grew. It was absolutely fantastic. I was especially impressed with just how quickly I came to root for Giorgina and Nico. Established relationships can be tricky, but this one was very well crafted. In fact so many of the relationships in this book, romantic and platonic alike were great. I cannot overstate how much I loved this book and how excited I am for the sequel. Definitely an early contender for best of the year.