M.W. Lee's Reviews > The Gilded Ones

Namina Forna's _The Gilded Ones_ receives three stars from me. I debated this because I'm not the target audience. However, I have some concrete issues that I feel justify this rating.

Three stars means I liked it, which I did. But it did drag along a bit. So, let's start with the negatives first. I found the writing stilted at times, unnecessarily cumbersome. I noted this the most in spoken language, which often changed and felt fake. The book is too long and could have benefited with cutting down. I don't mean delete scenes, but cutting down while saying the same things. I felt that some of the chapters rambled a bit. There were really no real surprises. What bothered me the most was a step would be made forward but then no further development on that theme for a time. I would have liked Deka really question what she was doing more.

What I liked: The themes are strong and come out clearly. Use of religion to oppress women, becoming who we are meant to be, friendship, learning and investigation are all strong in the book.

Recommended: For this one, I'm not going to recommend it for adults, but I think possibly YA readers will enjoy it more than I did.