I really wanted to love this book - the premise looked promising and the online chatter was positive. But unfortunately, it just didn’t quite do it for me.

First, the good stuff. Daud has created a beautiful and very detailed world - it’s vibrant and solidly constructed. She definitely has a talent for world building, and the quality of it is what kept me going through the book. I also really liked how poetry was an integral part of the protagonist Amani’s culture. She described it as an honour to be considered a poet, and recited passages of poems throughout the story. It really stuck with me - it’s such a unique and wonderful idea. I really wish the rest of the book was like this.

The antagonist Princess Maram was fascinating and multi-layered - the story from her perspective would have been great. But instead the narrator is her body-double Amani, a nice enough character, although rather one dimensional and dull. She had no fire and it made the slow pacing feel that much worse. The plot was pure filler, making it very obvious early on that this book was just setting up the rest of the series. That annoys me more than anything else. I have nothing against trilogies, but the first book should be more than an intro - it should be a full story unto itself!

I can’t finish this review without talking about the tropes. Oh, the many YA tropes - a society is conquered, one special girl joins the resistance, and don’t forget the instalove. Can we get a moratorium on instalove? It never comes off right - the relationship feels forced and lacks any spark. And of course, it ends up like that with Amani and her love interest, Idris.

Overall, I’d file this in the average column of YA fiction. I think I’m going to skip the rest of the series.