The Bookweaver’s Daughter is an #OwnVoices YA fantasy debut from young author Malavika Kannan. Packed with high stakes, artful prose, and bookish magic, this brand-new Indian-inspired fantasy has everything you could wish for!

The Bookweaver’s Daughter is set in a fantasy world inspired by ancient Indian lore and mythology. Rich with colour, magic, and political struggles, the story’s setting is beautifully detailed and captivating. In the ancient Indian kingdom of Kasmira, magic is a curse, and to tell a story means something much, much more. The Bookweaver’s Daughter includes all of the elements that make Middle-Eastern-influenced fantasy books wonderful.

The main character of The Bookweaver’s Daughter, Reya Kandhari, is reminiscent of the strong female leads we’ve come to know and love in fantasy and dystopian YA. Burdened with an important magical legacy and left endangered in the wake of her father’s death, Reya is forced to navigate friendship, power, and storytelling in a quick series of twists and turns. Reya’s best friend, Nina, shares her strength and determination, and refreshingly, it is this platonic relationship, rather than a romance, that takes the spotlight in the The Bookweaver’s Daughter’s subplots.

The Bookweaver’s Daughter tells a tale of friendship, power, and revolution, all through the lens of #ownvoices Indian magic and lore. I’d recommend this book to fans of Alwyn Hamilton’s Rebel of the Sands and S. A. Chakraborty’s The City of Brass.

Thank you to Tanglewood Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with this digital review copy.

I wanted to like this book. It was based on mythology/folklore, has a bit of magical realism, and strong female characters. The writer and cast of characters was diverse. I did not like the book. It felt like it jumped around a lot and lost focus quickly. The character actions didn't always make sense.

The writing wasn't as strong as I had hoped. The premise of the story was interesting but in the end it wasn't enough to make a lasting impression.

I am a sucker for adaptations of fairytales from cultures around the world - if they're done well. The concept was great, but I felt like this was basically "Siddhartha" written through the eyes of a young woman for younger audiences. The main character, Reya was difficult to relate to along her journey of finding herself as a fifteen year old. She didn't have a lot of depth for a main character, and her friendships and relationships just felt like they weren't developed enough. These are the bones of a food novel, but needed more fleshing out.

I was thinking that the beginning of this book is super interesting and this going to be one of my new favorite young adult fantasy from an ownvoices writer.

Before I dive further, the pro of this book: female friendship. That's it.

To the review:

I was so sad that I could not understand the time setting of this book, as well as the hard-to-grasp world-building. It is very confusing.

What I did not expected was the harmful representation of Muslim and Hindu in India. And like a lot of ownvoices Indian reader said, its poorly written and some even are inacurate and came out as offensive. Also there are a lack of research about Kashmiri recent events--again, very harmful. I didn't finished reading this book, I found it not right to do it after a lot of own-voices readers said they didn't feel represented.

I truly loved how whimsical and surreal this book felt while I was reading it. It was such an echanting tale about storytelling, the power of storytelling, and how far would one girl go to see justice made.

Truly reccommend it for all the dreamers out there!

I had trouble getting into this book. I kept getting distracted and wasn't sucked into the story like what happens when you read a really good book.

It was just okay for me.

I had a hard time getting into this book. I really was interested in Kannan, since she is young and that did translate into the text. In the end her style just wasn't for me.

i really enjoyed reading this book, it had what I was looking for in a fairy tale novel. The characters were great and I really enjoyed the plot.

Great writing and world building! I really enjoyed Reya's journey and the tension created by the secrets and magic. The twist and turns helped keep the plot engaging and developing. Hoping for further novels to expand the lore and world of Kashmira!

The Kindle copy I recieved of this book was incomplete and didn't let me read it. I tried the Netgalley app, but due to the glitch it does on my phone, it skipped pages and I had to stop. The pages I did read were really unremarkable, and in light of the issues raised about this book on social media, I didn't want to continue.

When a book promises representation of Indian culture but it's evident while reading the story that it's meant for the non-represented part of the readership, especially the whites who want clear translations (through the horrific chai tea, for example) and a black-and-white view on a region or society that's going through immense tension being a conflicted zone, even if either of these effects were unintentional on the author's part.

I was excited to read this story because it was an own voices. However, I could not get into it and then read reviews by own voices that said the book is a misrepresentation. I had to stop after that.

Thank you to Netgalley for a copy of this e-arc in exchange for an honest review. I wish it worked out better.

It was exactly as I expected. From every single page I see that the Author is really young and it's a debut novel.
First part of the book is based on scenario "she is running and somebody is trying to catch her". It was really predictable.
Second part of the book was much more interesting for me, but didn't give me anything new in my reader's life. I saw here a lot of "The City of Brass" vibes with way how Reya starts to learn her magic under the pressure, she finds a soulmate and after that things are not like we thing they should be.
Some things don't have any sense and they only added to the plot misunderstanding because they always are disaster...but it doesn't add anything useful to the reader's understanding.
Only one thing surprised me, but it wasn't explained to the end, so I don't understand why all those things had place.
Cultural motives I will not comment because I'm not an expert in Indian beliefs and culture.
It wasn't the worst book, but really predictable and sometimes events didn't make sense.
Author definitely has a potential, but long way to go and a lot of work on the writer's workshop and the way of building the story.

The upside of this book is that the author created beautiful imagery and a strong friendship. The down side was the pacing and the flow. I had a hard time staying focused on the story. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book. This author has raw talent and I look forward to trying again.

Thank you Netgally and the publisher for an ebook copy of The Bookweaver's Daughter in exchange for an honest review.

Things I loved about this book:
- Strong Female friendship
- Unique magic system

I have recently found out that I have some Indian heritage on my grandfather's side. And because of this felt really inspired to break out of my comfort zone of YA fantasy and read more diverse books. So when this book came across my feed that incorporated magic and adventure as well as Indian lore I jumped at the opportunity to read it.

But I found out fast that this wasn't the book to help give me an accurate representation of Kashmiri culture.

Things I didn't like in this book:
- I never knew when we were in the story. I think the events of this book were suppose to be over the course of moths, but that was never explained. So to me, the events transpired in a matter of days.
-lack of world building
-"naan bread"

The Bookweaver’s Daugther follows Reya, a fourteen year old girl who is the daughter of the bookweaver. When her father is gone, she is the heir of the bookweaver’s power. On the run with her best friend she needs to come to term with what to do with her power in a kingdom where people with magic has been hunted down.

I really recommend checking out ownvoices reviews if you are interested in reading this. Overall, I think the story had great potential but it didn’t live up to any of it at all. Not a single moment in the book bears any weight because there is nothing to leads up to them, we only skip to only the big events but we don’t care when it happens. There were also parts of the book that didn’t make logical and consistent sense to me, but I went more into detail of what in my video review. I have also read other reviews concerning the representation in this book, and again, I recommend reading more about the book before reading it. I sadly didn’t enjoy myself reading this at all, but to say something positive: the writing was very easy to follow. I just think this had some story issues (together with the other concerns), but I will be on the lookout for future releases by the author to see if the things bothering me here is present in later works. 2/5 stars.

This is the story of Reya, the Bookweaver's daughter and her best friend Nina as they try to fight the current King.

I tried my best to finish this one but was unable to. I was not able to connect with the story and the characters. I think it was too fast paced for me. I haven't yet adjusted with the world and barely know the characters and they were already facing misfortunes left and right one after the other. Since I barely know them, I feel nothing while they are being hunted.

The sequence of events also feels disjointed at some parts. Also, Reya is the Bookweaver's daughter and that's it. I mean what else is there to describe her? It seems to me that Reya is your typical chosen one and that's her characteristic, the chosen one. A lot of one dimensional characters too. Maybe the characters will grow at the latter part of the book but I no longer feel interested on continuing.

If you prefer fast paced books, this might interest you. But unfortunately, this didn't worked out for me. :(

Note: I left the rating blank on Goodreads since I dnf the book.

***Thanks to the publisher for allowing me to access this book via netgalley to give my honest review***

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book; the book was entertaining, the story kept me engaged, and I didn't want to put it down. I loved the friendship between Reya and Nina and the strength they showed on the journey they were forced to take.

Thank you NetGalley, Tanglewood, and Malavika Kannan for the ARC.

I was originally very excited to read this eARC from Netgalley, but it really disappointed. I appreciated the strong protagonist young women, but the representation was pretty awful - there appears to be a complete lack of research done by the author. I wish I could comment more, but it just wasn't worth the read. Had it non been an ARC I would have dnf'd a long time ago.

After a good first chapter it goes downhill and the story didn't keep my attention.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.