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Abi (The Knights Who Say Book)'s Reviews > This Woven Kingdom

This Woven Kingdom by Tahereh Mafi
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I was excited when I realized this book was going for a kind of regency, Georgette Heyer meets YA fantasy genre (Exciting! Combine regency, fantasy, Arabic worldbuilding, and Cinderella retelling, and you have a lot of things going on. This could have been a fascinating melting pot) but ultimately I didn’t enjoy it the way I expected to. The genrebending basically ended up in the range of “regular YA fantasy, but in an extremely formal writing style.” It didn’t do the interesting genre/worldbuilding things I hoped for.

I think my problem with the plot is the timeline. YA fantasy has this tendency to have everything happen in a short timespan—I think this book is a few days (2? 3?). To me, expecting the reader to buy that, for example, an entire royal ball is announced, planned, and then happens in the space of like 2 of those days strains the suspension of disbelief. And at the same time, two characters are falling in love, the main character juggles a job and a sewing commission and attempts on her life, there are hints of a deep dark secret dropped at the beginning that doesn’t come up again until the very end because, honestly, the main characters are just not involved in it, and multiple other players are helping (or are they?) the main character, and I just don’t understand why this couldn’t have taken a month instead, so we could actually have time to explore each of these things.
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Reading Progress

March 10, 2023 – Started Reading
March 10, 2023 – Shelved
March 15, 2023 – Shelved as: diverse-reads
March 15, 2023 – Shelved as: young-adult
March 15, 2023 – Shelved as: retelling
March 15, 2023 – Shelved as: fantasy
March 15, 2023 – Shelved as: main-character-of-color
March 15, 2023 – Finished Reading
April 1, 2023 – Shelved as: series-i-won-t-be-continuing

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