Review: The Wild Ones

 

In all honesty, this book was on my tbr for a while. Even before the 25 reads of December, on which I am tremendously behind on. 20 days to go and only 3 reads down? Breh. But yeah, kinda glad for the reading challenge to be able to get down to this book.

The Wild Ones by Nafiza Azad is a story of the Wild Ones, a group of young women who were broken and shunned from society and found solace with each other via magic. The story starts with Paheli,, who'd bumped into Taraana while running away, which lays the beginning of her powers. 

QUICK THOUGHTS AND REVIEW: 2/5, Seriously the book could have done a much better job than it promised.

PROS:

1. The premise: One of the few things I liked was the premise. The mystery that surrounded the Wild Ones and their story was something that I loved a lot. I love a story that has a good premise.

2. The concept of strong women: One of the main themes in this book is feminism and strong women. Not many books portray the concept of feminism and women that well and it felt sort of good to see that rep in this book. The fact that the Wild Ones don't need anyone else but each other while travelling from one place to another is a really nice thing.

CONS:

This is something that will have a longass list for the first time.

1. PLOT: okay, I was so, so freaking disappointed when I found out that this book has no plot. I mean, it does have a plot but I really couldn't find it. It was so damn feeble. And it irks me. Like, what's the friggin plot? What is it about? This left me questioning for a long time.

2. Info dumping: Okay, if there is one of the things that I sorely hate is Information dumping, or info dumping. The first five chapters of the book was sorely info-dumping. No interaction with the readers whatsoever and no moving the plot forward. It sort of becomes boring when you're tolerating it for a while. It almost made me want to chuck the book in the DNF zone.

3. Style: It sucks. Like just simply, it sucks. I mean, half of the time the style was either exaggerated to the point it was as dramatic as Apollo in PJO, or the other times it was so bland it left too much to the imagination to the reader. I think it would be a strain, even for the most imaginative mind.

4. Anti Climatic: it was just plain anti-climatic. The whole book just felt like the girls were just wandering around in fear and suddenly defeated Baarish. Like come on mate, there has to be something to keep it interesting. But no, it was just plain, bland narration.

OVERALL, IT WAS JUST A READ, nothing more, nothing less. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone if asked if I am going to be honest.