BLURB: Sarah Amani is a Worldsmith. At eighteen, she accidentally conjured a mythical world she called Lagenda from her mind with the help of a past lover, Malik.
Five years had passed and she was on a straight path to healing and moving on. She made sure nobody could enter Lagenda again and only allowed people to come in as wanderers by giving them petals as tickets. It was her way of ensuring that Lagenda remained hers without destroying it. Just when she thought she could leave her past, she was invited back into the world with a note saying "You know what to do. -M".
She had to go back to Lagenda to make sure the person who sent her the note could not take the world from her. What Amani found is that Lagenda was not as abandoned as she thought it was. Determined to save her world from being exploited and smeared more than how it already is, she sets to burn every door and relic holding the world together. If she cannot keep Lagenda, nobody should. But it seemed that the person who sent her the note had other plans.
Together with her trusty dagger, Misya, her sister, a stubborn historian called Najmi and all the misfits she never dreamed of collaborating with, she would find herself propelling straight to her dark past and beloved world.
Erasers are nice and pretty. But in life, sometimes you have to take a pen and write over the things you want to fix. Just cross out the things you don't like and write a new string of words. There is no time to erase, not enough erasers in the world. No time for perfection in moving on, just action.
Author: N.F. Afrina
Genre: Young Adult, Magical Realism, Fiction
Goodreads rating: 3.87
Pages: 585
Publication: February 22nd 2022 by Whitecoat Group Sdn. Bhd
Goodreads rating: 3.87
Pages: 585
Publication: February 22nd 2022 by Whitecoat Group Sdn. Bhd
Review type: Non-spoilery
review
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I wrote a review right after I finished reading this book on Goodreads at 12.00AM, but it was not well thought out, so here I am rewriting a review for this book because this book was very meaningful for me to not be mentioned in my blog.
This book was a deeply emotional book that centres around the topics of healing, finding your way back to yourself and God, what closure really looks like, forgiveness and letting go. Interestingly, this book is also a magical realism, set in a world with people with knacks, and some even have the ability to create a whole other magical world. And for this book specifically, we have the main character, Amani, who created a world called Lagenda.
First and foremost, despite being a magical realism, this book is a fictional self-help book at its core. With so many touching lines about healing and the way some important topics, such as abuse, relationships and forgiveness with one's self were beautifully written, it was proven that N.F. Afrina has a way with words. There was so much power imbued in the way those important topics were written, but they are also written in metaphors and pretty lines, which enables the book to touch the souls of us readers, but also delicate enough to not break those who can relate to the main character's experiences. For me personally, these topics were well done and are the highlights of this book.
The beauty of this book was also its curse; it was not the plethora of metaphors that became a problem, but the disorganised way they were laid out. It's one thing to have niche writing, and it's one thing to have a disorganised one, to the point that the readers have problems in recognising where we were in the story, and understanding the world and its magic system. Personally, I think it's fine that the author spent so much time inserting metaphors here and there. I agree that those will beautify the book, but at the same time, the world-building felt a little bit abandoned. Whilst the magical part of this book blended so well with the real world, which is applaudable, the details on that magical part was not exactly well-written, which sucks for us fantasy lovers.
Other than that... despite this story being character-driven, the main character herself was not so lovable, not in the I-hate-her-so-much way but I-don't-know-her-well-to-love-her way, as everything was written more in 'told' way than 'shown'. Like, I loved Amani's journey towards healing, but not Amani herself, and it was a bit disappointing that we didn't get to learn more about side characters such as Misya, Najmi and the others. This book was written in Amani's POV with other characters' POVs here and there, but those other characters' POV were written in a very rushed way that made them feel very two-dimensional with no lovable or interesting qualities.
With that being said, if this is the first book out of a series, it is a promising one. Especially after reading the short story at the end, I definitely would buy the sequel. Additionally, having read the A/N saying this book was written when she was 18 explains the way this book was written. I am never going to say poorly written because I could never write a book with emotional depth like this book when I was 18. And this book was already this good without proofreading, are you kidding me? You can definitely see the author's growth in the short story, which is why I am so rooting for her and this world.
Recommended for people who love: magical realism, self-love, empowered women, religious stories
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