Review: The Daughters of Izdihar

The Daughters of Izdihar by Hadeer Elsbai
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thanks to Shannon Chakraborty and Piéra Forde’s glowing recs, I ordered this book at the library and was very glad it came in so quickly. Hadeer Elsbai crafts a world heavily inspired by Egypt, in a city near the delta of a river very like the Nile, near a White Middle Sea and a Vermillion Sea with clear counterparts. Where it diverges is the presence of an autocratic theocratic kingdom to the west, where Algeria and Morocco would be IRL, but much more reminiscent of Iran under the Ayatollah. There’s also a fictionalized Talyana, essentially Italy, now cataclysmically wrecked to the point where its people largely live in new lands and have forgotten most of their old culture. Among their number are two main characters - Giorgina, a lower class woman in love with her protagonistic counterpart Nehal’s betrothed, and Nico, said betrothed.

Between the blending of Islamic and ancient Egyptian influences, as well as this sizable Italian-esque diaspora, Elsbai crafts a very unique culture. The challenge for our leading ladies Nehal and Giorgina, though, lies in the highly oppressive patriarchy dominating this culture. They protest for their rights as women - the right to vote, the right to serve in the military, the right to choose…but also for their rights as elemental weavers, whom the populace fears and despised because of one female weaver using multiple elements to destroy Talyana. It’s definitely got a bit of Avatar: The Last Airbender vibes, with most weavers unable to weave more than one element (Edua, the one said to have destroyed Talyana, owes a lot to the darker impulses of Avatar Kyoshi) and some hidden secondary powers that could prove pretty deadly.

What’s even deadlier, though, is the weapons grade cliffhanger ending this book…and the sequel still doesn’t have a GR page yet!

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