i really enjoyed the lyrical writing style and the structure of the novel. it blurs the lines between who our main character really is, since we experience the story through our unnamed narrator, who goes on to meet a new villager named mustafa sa'eed. the novel has dream-like qualities at times and it changes between time periods and perspectives quite subtly. while reading, i became hyper aware that i am reading a piece of work written by a sudanese man from the 1960s and that naturally completely changed the way i looked at the text. it was quite intriguing to read from this wholly different perspective and i felt like i got quite a vivid insight into what life could have been like then. the novel mainly deals with the brutality of colonialism and how that affects the identity and society of sudanese people. what positively surpised me is how openly salih critiqued misogyny and patriarchy through the abhorrently violent way all women were treated in the book. the book lost me at times because of its pace but the ending left me satisfied.

the title really says it all.. i haven't read a story this brutal yet realistic in some time and it really left me thinking. the characters felt hyperrealistic, intricate and complex. i realized that i quite enjoy books written from the second person and this one was no exception, it changes between first and second person in such a nice way. the transitions from the letters to the present to memories was also done so seemlessly. the prose was beautiful to me and the way the author talked about topics like cameroon, about religion, sexuality, culture and womanhood in such a poignant way.

i desperately asked for dark academia with more representation and that's exactly what i got! the two main characters are jamaican and african american, the side characters are, except for one person, all people of color & i was so happy to see that three characters are bi and we also got nonbinary rep! cultural elements were included in a nice way, from using jamaican patois phrases to international myths and stories about magic.

i enjoyed the dark academia elements, which was mostly intersectional critique of academia and the upper class, with commentary on poverty and the rich, colonialism, being a woman of color and more, as well as the mystery at the heart of the story. the atmosphere was set really well and the whole academia vibe was used well to sustain this. for me the mystery was intriguing and layered well, the fact that this was a blend of horror, mystery, thriller, dark academia and fantasy elevated it even more. the focus could have been less on the romance for me (which to be clear, this was academic rivals to lovers, NOT enemies to lovers). the world building was fun and i liked that it's not very extensive but more so fully focused on the history and secrets of one school.

i had some problems with the main characters and writing at times but i was quickly sucked into the story and had a good time with this book! if you liked these books, i could imagine that you'd enjoy an arcane inheritance as well: immortal dark, babel (especially if you wanted to read more about victoire), alex stern and the dynamic of the two MCs reminded me a little bit of bluesey from the raven cycle.

thank you so much to netgalley and kamilah cole for the arc!

i love it when i start a book, get the feeling that this will be a five star read immediately and am right until the very end. throughout the entire book this never felt any less than a five star read to me.

the plot of the book is simple enough; there's a legend and there's a historian who translates the stories about said legend. until the historian travels back in time to write the story about the legend himself and sees that she's not only a legend, but also a hero, a saint, a fighter and so much more while also being a mere mortal woman, a means to an end. it's a simple story until there's many layers to the same story, one story told in a million different ways, all connected by one thing. i adore how we learn and remember with the characters, how the story is told from first, second and third perspective, shifting between different points of view and how we relive the same story told from all different kinds of angles. the core message is simple enough but everything around it is so brilliantly complex.

when i say i underlined hundreds of lines in this book, it's not an understatement. every other page is annotated heavily. the pacing was always right for me, the world building (which to be clear is more so.. time building) so fascinating and well-crafted and the writing always perfectly captured everything. the writing itself is characteristic of the very messages of the book and it encapsulated the essence of the characters themselves, the circular motions of history so well. it's like harrow always knew the exact words she needed to use to make the sentence, paragraph, page and story itself perfect.

now i don't even know what to say about the characters. there's two main characters, we get introduced to them at the beginning of the story, naturally, and they're intriguing. they're flawed and we don't really understand them yet. with every single page you get to know them more and harrow uses the cyclical nature of time and history so well to show how the characters develop. i might have never seen a dual pov pulled off more perfectly than here, it's so essential to the story and makes both characters feel so richly complex. there's a couple of side characters, most of them are rarely on page as active characters but they are there and every single one of them has such intricate relationships and dynamics with the two main characters. we meet all of them multiple times and every time my opinion on them changed a little, because harrow added something that made them even more nuanced. none of the characters were flat, ever. alix e harrow really is the master storyteller, there's a thousand chess pieces on the board and she has control over every one of them and plays every move perfectly.

first off thank you so much to the author for letting the read this in advance, i had a blast!! this was genuinely so much fun!! actual enemies to lovers between two girls who are descendants from the gods, fighting on two sides of a conflict, there's dual pov and dual identities involved, urban fantasy set in singapore and there's rom-com elements and more.

the main characters really won my heart!! they were so well written to me, lots of layers and complexities, some sweet character development & coming of age and the dynamic between the two was awesome! it was fun when they were enemies, delightfully messy when they were figuring out the in-between and so sweet to see the aftermaths. (raven reminded me of gideon nav because of her personality and sense of humour and that's why she immediately won my heart). the side characters are there and i generally liked all of them but they were really more in the background and a little less fleshed out.

i'm a big fan of the writing because of how versatile it was. there was some great banter and some true rom-com lines that made me giggle, some very cheesy YA lines that lightened up the mood but there also were more serious passages with lots of angst and some beautiful lyrical passages, especially during tia's pov.

the plot was so much fun and paced really well, i was on my toes for the first half of the book, anticipating something happening the entire time, then a lot of shit happened, chaos ensued and my feelings were all over the place. excellent amount of chaos; one small critique is that i would have loved to see singapore more as a character. the story is set in singapore but i didn't really feel like i was in singapore. that's all though, go pick this up if you want some fun and messy enemies to lovers sapphics!!