I had really high hopes for this book, because the setting sounded unique and I usually enjoy a good female rage and revenge story, this wasn’t that unfortunately. I had loads of issues with this book, starting with the way the story is narrated - it’s all tell, no show, descriptions are lacklustre and flat and much of the action is happening off-page so that we aren’t really part of it. Then the pacing, the first half of the book is random scenes in the town that are supposed to set the stage I guess, but they seem just random, including lots of planning stuff and Aicha behaving like a petulant child. There is some action after the midway point, but even that happens mostly off page, after maany pages of planning said action, or it’s just a few sentences and that’s it. No tension arc whatsoever. Finally the last ten percent are just spice and gore. Tbh, I only skimmed that part because neither appealed to me much. The writing itself also wasn’t the best, sometimes there are words missing, sentences stay unclear and the sentence structure is often off. Regarding the characters, we don’t really learn a lot about them through the story, only the stuff we’re told. We are presented with oh so intense relationships, best friendships, familial love, but nothing at all comes across feeling wise. We are told „this is her best friend“ but honestly, I wouldn’t have known from the way their interactions are written. This led so far that I didn’t even care about the main event that pushes Aicha over the edge, also because there is no real foreshadowing and it all happens so abruptly. And then the rage - as I said, I really like a female rage / revenge story, but in this book the author seemingly couldn’t make up her mind whether the rage was a good thing because it brought katharsis or whether it was a bad thing that should be tamed and suppressed. Marketing a book as female rage and then having the female suppress her rage for most of the book with the help of a guy - that didn’t make sense to me at all. And lastly the magic - this is kinda a historical, low fantasy book, more a mythology retelling than real fantasy, but even that part was super vague, like, why introduce such interesting characters as Ilham and Naima and then give them and their craft so little room? There could have been a really interesting story there, but well. Anyway, that’s enough ranting from my side, as I said, the idea and the setting were super promising, but the execution just didn’t live up to the potential, neither regarding the narrative style nor the character development or writing style. Still, thanks to Little, Brown and Netgalley for the e-arc!

Die Geschichte greift die Legende von Aicha Kandicha auf, eine Figur aus der marokkanischen Folklore – oft dargestellt als verführerischer, gefährlicher Geist, aber auch als Symbol für Widerstand und weibliche Stärke. Diese Dualität ist im Buch spürbar, und ich mochte den Ansatz, den Mythos neu und empowernd zu interpretieren. Trotzdem hat mich die Handlung etwas ratlos zurückgelassen. Die Atmosphäre ist da und der Schreibstil hat seine Momente, aber insgesamt hatte ich das Gefühl, dass etwas fehlt. Ich habe immer wieder darauf gewartet, dass sich alles zuspitzt oder zusammenfügt – dieser Moment blieb für mich leider aus. Ich hätte mir einfach mehr gewünscht: mehr Handlung, mehr Intensität und vor allem mehr von dieser rohen weiblichen Wut, die die Prämisse eigentlich verspricht. Vielen Dank an NetGalley für das Hörbuch. Und ein großes Lob an die Sprecherin – sie hat einen wirklich großartigen Job gemacht und der Geschichte zusätzlich Tiefe verliehen, wo sie mir inhaltlich manchmal gefehlt hat. Insgesamt ein spannendes Konzept mit starken mythologischen Ansätzen, das mich aber nicht vollständig überzeugen konnte.

I had high hopes and they fell down so quickly… The description sounded really nice and I was really looking forward to reading this book. But I just couldn’t like it. Firstly, it didn’t pick up pace untill 77% (!) and if I as a High Fantasy lover find it slow its really, really slow. Additionally it gave me the ick how the author just didn’t use pronouns. Like, I don’t want to be reminded of the persons name in every single sentence, thank you very much. It’s the first thing I learned about writing in school. On top: the book lacked descriptions so severely I couldn’t stand it anymore. Everything was TOLD by the characters, not by a narrator. They were talking so much to each other that we got no intel into Aichas thoughts or her motivations which made the book flat and even more boring. Show, not tell should be the motto So yeah, sadly I can only summarize it with: I loved the idea but couldn’t stand the writing… Thanks to netgalley for the eARC!