Wednesday, November 30, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Road of the Lost by Nafiza Azad

 


Road of the Lost is the third novel by Young Adult Fantasy author Nafiza Azad, who burst onto the scene with Muslim/Djinn inspired "The Candle and the Flame" and followed that up with the angry feminist YA "The Wild Ones". I really liked both of those novels quite a bit - both featured unconventional protagonists dealing with sexism and patriarchy, strong rough worlds - a secondary one in The Candle and the Flame and a version of our own world in The Wild Ones - and themes that work really well even as their plotting might be a little predictable and the secondary characters were often underdeveloped . So I was very much in for this novel to see how Azad would approach another favorite subgenre of mine, fae fantasy.

And the answer is fascinating, as Road of the Lost features a really fascinating protagonist in Croi, a girl who discovers that her true form is not what she has been led to believe, and finds herself wandering through a Fae world, drawn in by spells and quests not under her control, as she struggles with her new body's changes, struggles with connection for the first time while she's in dreams, and with people who often try to use her or expect her to care for them without much basis, only adding to her disorientation. It's a story featuring a fascinating protagonist in how Croi is both good at heart and often cold and indifferent to those around her, as she sees through lies people all refuse to disbelieve, leading to an ending that is satisfying while also raising the possibility of a sequel that I'd be very interested in reading.

More specifics after the jump:

-------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------
Croi grew up in the human world, raised by the stone-skinned Hag, who taught her the basics of the Fae World, the Otherworld, and its division into four elemental kingdoms. She believed herself to be an ordinary brownie, blessed with the gift of invisibility, and spent her time going out of the forest and to the human market...and secretly to the castle of the local human King, where she spent time with a Stone Maiden, a statue she knows contains a living Fae being that has been cursed and immobilized as stone.

But when 17 year old Croi somehow gives the Maiden her own invisibility, revealing herself for a moment to the humans, everything changes. First she begins to have dreams of a Fae prince named Irial, who is searching for the heir to his nation, the heir to the throne his mother is accused of stealing. Then she begins to feel her body changing, as the glamour making her look like a brownie breaks, causing her to feel tremendous pain and discomfort. And even worse, she begins to feel the influence of a summoning spell, which requires her to keep moving forward and find a way into the Otherworld for some strange unknown person.

Croi doesn't want to go away, especially at the behest of someone who summons her without permission. She isn't sure what to do with the strange Fae she encounters, some of whom treat her offers of kindness with selfish acts of unkindness. She certainly isn't sure what to do with the inner voice that's part of her and yet not her at the same time.

But Croi isn't simply going to let things happen around her, not when she can meet Irial for real and possibly help the few who do seem worth it in a world that only she knows is falling apart......
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Road of the Lost features a setup that in other hands might result in a very different, far more common book - where a protagonist kept away from the magical world she belongs to finds her way back there, and her good natured disposition leads to her helping and changing for the better those she meets and that world in general. This....is not that book. You do have, as your third person narrator, a 17 year old in Croi who is clearly some kind of Fae (even if not the type she once thought) who was brought up and kept away from the Otherworld that is clearly her place of origin. Croi begins the book incredibly good natured, with her biggest joys being playing harmless pranks on humans who can't see her (and taking and eating their food) and in sharing company with the Stone Maiden in the King's Garden, who she wishes she could uncurse. And when she discovers within her a part of herself with its own mind, a part that is a little bitter with being kept inside all this time, she isn't fearful of it and tries to maintain a more positive attitude in her conversations with it

But as Croi encounters the Otherworld, her kindness isn't always met with kindness in return, and Croi changes as a result - especially as she deals with her changing body (which can quite naturally be seen as a metaphor for a bunch of things obviously). The result is that while Croi doesn't lose some of her drive to try and help, she also becomes a lot less willing to care for and associate with people who don't reciprocate. So a cat-kin who uses her to save his siblings at the cost of her own safety, when she thought he was a possible friend becomes someone she gives the cold shoulder, and soldiers who accidentally attack her out of misunderstanding are those she isn't willing to quickly and nicely forgive. And when she discovers the truth behind her blood relation, and comes face to face with the ones who birthed her (which I'm carefully wording to avoid spoiling), Croi isn't willing to accept them with open arms, because to her, such a person let her suffer the way she has and grow up in ignorance, and hasn't actually earned it.

Croi is at times good hearted, while at other times selfish - she's naive at times, but at other times she's incredibly perceptive and capable of seeing through what others take for granted as true, but actually isn't. She's a mess of contradictions, and it makes her a fascinating protagonist as she struggles against her body's transformation into something she doesn't understand and against others' attempts to use her for her own purposes, without her being able to make a choice as to a destiny of her own. And so her dream meetings with Irial, where she has a crush on him just on her own and not because anyone forced her to, are some of the few moments she feels most comfortable, whereas in the real waking world even her one clear unambiguous friend in a Pixie named Tinder is someone she finds it hard to trust, because she just knows such people can betray her.

Croi's struggle mirrors the issues facing the Otherworld and its denizen, where one ruler turns out to have harmed people in exchange for power while another was villainized for trying to stop them and really does seek the best of everyone else and where fathers refuse to acknowledge the truth of their children, leading to people being manipulated by falsehoods and not in control of their own destinies and choices. And thus we have a setting that featuers a plot that works really well in its small length, up until it comes to its final conclusion, which is very satisfying even as it also sort of serves as a cliffhanger for a potential sequel (which I'm not sure is actually coming as I don't see any sequel or series announcements when I google).

Road of the Lost isn't a complete winner - like Azad's earlier works, its secondary character are underdeveloped at times, with Azad focusing entirely upon Croi. But it is compelling despite that, and I really do hope Azad comes back to this world to explore what happens next now that Croi is seemingly more fully formed into a comfortable body.



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