Graphic: Xenophobia, Hate crime, War, and Racism Moderate: Murder, Violence, and Misogyny

Thank you Netgalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review! While this had a pretty good story and message to show, I think the writing was lacking a fair bit. Everything was just super convenient and Mayowa specifically was just such a stereotypical "Chosen one". Every plan and idea worked practically without resistance and without much thought either. The characters where pretty fun, a half Nigerian, half English family - with a blind mother. Decently diverse set of characters, though no queer people. Mayowa was a fun main character but not super complex. She had character growth for sure but she was also very much a stereotypical "chosen one" character. She was way too smart, everything she thought of just worked without issue regardless of how wild it was. The powers just came to her too naturally, too easily. She was quickly teaching her grandpa how to use the magic after very little training. The world building was pretty interesting, but very limited. The logosalting was neat, a different form of "words have power" but whenever a different form was mentioned then it was literally just "I'll have to research that later" and never mentioned again... The history of the power mainly focused on the misogynistic rules and the war criminal/racist/etc past uses and not really anything about the origins or how it works or anything like that. The footnotes as well where incredibly confusing. Why did they exist? So much of them would have fit fine within the text, and other bits where either a bit aggressive or just completely nonsensical. Didn't think you could have worse footnotes in a book than Babel aha.. The messages where nice, and very topical especially at the moment with the current political climate here in the UK. But the fantasy part and the writing really needed some additional work.