Book Review: "The Bird King" by G. Willow Wilson

This book was disappointing and for a moment I thought I wouldn’t finish it. The beginning of it totally caught my attention, though.

As the synopsis says, the story is set during the reign of a sultan that falls into the hands of the Spanish Inquisition, a situation that changes the lives of two friends, Fatima and Hassan. The story looks promising at this point because we can read a little bit about the traditions held around that time and place (Iberian Peninsula), like the way Fatima and Hassan arrived at the palace, the way they served their masters (Fatima as a concubine and Hassan as a magic mapmaker, as well as their subsequent longing for freedom, and how this freedom looks even more impossible to achieve with the arrival of the Holy Office representatives.

In order to save Hassan of a terrible fate involving his talent with mapmaking, he and Fatima embarked in a journey that I think it lacked a feeling of adventure and emotion, which made it boring; a journey that also added unnecessary characters that didn’t have enough background to make you feel anything for them, not love nor hate (and I'm afraid to say I felt nothing for the main characters either). Also, they were parts that were a little bit confusing to me, but I have the feeling that it was because of the Kindle format I got.

This story wasn’t for me. Definitely.

I could read this book thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic ;)

G. WILLOW WILSON is the author of the acclaimed novel The Bird King, co-creator of the Hugo and American Book Award-winning series Ms Marvel, and has written for some of the world’s best-known superhero comic book series, including The X-Men, Superman, and Wonder Woman. Her first novel, Alif the Unseen, won the 2013 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, was a finalist for the Center For Fiction’s First Novel Prize, and was long-listed for the 2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction. In 2015, she won the Graphic Literature Innovator Prize at the PEN America Literary Awards. Her work has been translated into over a dozen languages. She lives in Seattle.