Aicha THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING ULTIMATE FEMALE RAGE FANTASY

Had potential, didn't live up to it at all

Johanna am 12.04.2026
Bewertungsnummer: 3107062
Bewertet: Buch (Taschenbuch)

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 several scenes in the town that are supposed to set the stage I guess, but they seem just random, including lots of planning and repetitive conversations 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 unnecessary spice and vivid gore. Tbh, I only skimmed that part because neither appealed to me much. My favourite part was the epilogue, I think, because finally it felt like there was some kind of message behind the story that didn't come across at all for the first 99%. 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 romantic relationships, friendships, familial love, but none of the feelings come across. 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 the little magic that was there was super vague, like, why include literal witches 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!