Review: Mirage

Mirage by Somaiya Daud
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Veronica Roth's recommendation was what got me to read this book first and foremost, and I'm pretty glad I did. Not only because it's very #ownvoices, steeped in cultural influence from across the historical Muslim world, but also very Roth-like in a lot of ways. Though the world-building barely scratches the surface in this book, it's still as rich and detailed as you can hope for. Maybe the book's a little shorter than I would have liked, and a little harder to savor slowly, and a few of the characters do feel a little one-dimensional (particularly Maram and Nadine and other such villains.) But Amani and her family are lovely people, extremely easy to root for, and so is Idris. I mean, sharing a name with a certain sex symbol actor is good enough, but Idris is such a beautiful, sensitive sweetheart that he and Amani make a ship worthy of status in the pantheon with Tris and Tobias. Coming next year, Court of Lions, in which I hope Daud really cuts loose with her world-building and reader-surprising skills.

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