I don’t like starting my reviews for books aimed at younger demographics with this but in this instance it’s a compliment: I would have LOVED to read this as a teenager in middle or high school, in fact I think it would have been quite foundational. I love Middle Eastern fantasy* (*not really bc no magic but it’s not Our World so whatever), I love KNIGHTS, I love postcolonialism and I think this is postcolonialism made digestible for someone who’s like 12 and 4-8 years away from ever hearing the name Edward Said. I love the relationship that develops between Aiza & Doruk. I love the Knight Lore. I loooove the general vibes.

Some criticisms: I couldn’t always follow or visualize the action when it was happening, which isn’t the greatest when your hero is training to fight and thus fighting a lot. I also thought we were going through everything at kind of a breakneck pace - for example

Aiza becoming a squire and then becoming disillusioned with being a squire in what felt like one day or maybe a week max.

I think there could have been more of a sense of time passing especially with Aiza being I think 12-13 at the beginning and PROBABLY older by the end (

though no more than 3 years older since she broke Basem’s father’s record for the fastest recruit to become a Squire

), but I didn’t think she looked like she got any older other than going back and seeing that she seemed to grow a few inches (even that is suspect because of how loose the drawing style & scaling is). Squire is a relatively small story in pure plot but a vast story in themes so I would have liked a little bit of a slower pace and more in-universe time passing. 

Anyway I’m gonna need about a dozen more of these. I could read Aiza, Husni, & Sahar’s adventures for volumes and volumes, and this has a very… first book in the series vibe. Manifesting a sequel even though

I think the ending is very much meant to say “you should hope these characters don’t get more stories because that would mean they’re still struggling”

…. Just show me them hanging out for 2000 pages or something

Doruk <<<<3333