representation: entirely Moroccan cast
content warnings: colonisation, kidnapping, murder, loss of a loved one, grief, torture

“More than that, I hoped that Maram would think back on the words she’d helped me craft, and envision a world without the cruelties of her father’s reign.
It was a small hope, I thought, looking out over the crowd, but an important one – if Maram could be the ruler that her father had failed to be, that her mother had wanted to be, then there was hope for us – for all of us.
Wasn’t there?
I had to believe it.”

Finally, some good fucking food. I do really like YA fantasy but there are many seeming staples of the genre that I'm just not a fan of which stop me from reading it too often, which is probably the reason why this has sat on my shelf for two years. But I needn't have feared because Mirage in every way is a breath of fresh air that makes me want to devour all the fantasy on my shelves.

This debut is set in a Moroccan-inspired galaxy, specifically on the planet of Andala. Amani is the youngest in a family of farmers living on Cadiz, one of Andala's moons, and was born after the Vath empire conquered the planet. At her coming of age ceremony, Amani is taken from her village by the Vath and is held captive at the royal palace where she discovers that she looks identical to Princess Maram. Maram is half-Vathek/half-Andalan and is so despised by the Andalan's that she needs a body double, and Amani is forced to fill the role.

I haven't read a book this deeply emotional in a very long time. Everything that the characters felt left me with an ache in my chest, whether it was love, or grief, or joy. Some of this is Somaiya Daud's lush writing that made me fall in love with the book almost instantly, but a lot of it comes down to how much Amani experiences these emotions. She is a very sincere character who becomes good at hiding her emotions on the outside but on the inside is incapable of not feeling them to their fullest.

This book is told in first-person perspective exclusively from Amani point of view but every character around her is one that makes me feel just as much because of how well Daud writes them. Amani is a fairly perceptive character and that means that whenever a character she knows fairly well is experiencing anything, she picks up on it and immediately empathises with them. It's a clever tool to understanding and caring for side characters while also deepening Amani's character.

There are two things Mirage has that really make this my kryptonite: excellent relationships of all kinds, and SPACE FANTASY.

Now, space fantasy is not a very popular genre, mostly because a lot of people don't know it when they see it. Most people will see that something is set in space and immediately classify it as science fiction even when there's nothing scientific about it, to the point that Star Wars is still classified as a sci-fi even though it couldn't be further away. Admittedly, the fantasy in this first book is pretty light, the majority of the fantastical elements being only discussed as things that happened in the past or legends. The way this book ends makes me think that the sequel will have a little more fantasy, which excites me, but honestly I'd be happy if it remained mostly a thing of legend.

I'm pretty sure none of you care about the underrated genre that is space fantasy like I do, so let's just move right along to talking about relationships because they're amazing. Specifically the relationships between Amani & Maram and Amani & Idris.

Idris is Maram fiance who she is engaged to solely for political reasons. He becomes Amani's biggest challenge when she is imitating Maram as he arguably knows her best. Amani becomes romantically interested in Idris pretty early on and it blossoms from there. I went into this knowing there would be a romance and expecting to hate it, but Somaiya Daud really did the impossible and made me swoon multiple times over the course of reading this book. For one, a trope I hate in romances like theirs was subverted almost immediately so that made me already really on board for it. They also just have great chemistry and care so deeply for each other that I couldn't help but love their romance.

Amani and Maram's relationship is where my love for this book truly skyrockets, though. Maram is known for being unnecessarily cruel and does horrendous things to Amani when they first meet. But over time, Maram grows to trust Amani more and Amani realises how incredibly lonely Maram is. The Vath don't want her to be their Queen because she's half-Andalan and the Andalan despise her because she is part-Vath. Her father raised her to be a conqueror who hated the Andalan and so she did. But as she becomes closer to Amani, she learns more about her mother's people and the Andalan family she has who mourn her as if she is dead. The way her and Amani's relationship develops made me tear up in parts because of how lovely it was. The end of the book broke my heart and I need to read the next book immediately because I need to know where their relationship will go after what happened.

I generally don't care for political intrigue but this managed to do even that really well, I think largely because of how personal everything was made. The politics all concern Amani directly and so both she and I care about decisions the Vath make about their colonised planet. The politics are also tied very closely to Maram and her future, which makes it far more interesting as I sat on the edge of my seat wondering where she would fall on different things her people planned to do.

At its core, Mirage is a deeply emotional character-driven story that still has a heavy focus on plot as it relates directly to our characters and their relationships. The ending is one of my favourites I've read all year and I need to find the sequel. This book reinvigorated my love for YA fantasy, and fantasy in general, but I worry that the next few I read just won't measure up to how much I loved this.

Also, shout-out to Somaiya Daud for writing a fantasy that was just over 300 pages. So many fantasy authors nowadays seem to think that good = long, when usually it's more like long = boring. I do love a hefty fantasy but there's something to be said for how much short fantasy can pack a punch, and Mirage absolutely did.