Mini-Review: Nihal of the Land of the Wind by Licia Triosi

Nihal of the Land of the Wind by Licia Triosi (Indiebound, Book Depository, Amazon) was originally written in Italian and this is its first translation into English. I picked it up to read because I was hoping to find something different and exciting. Unfortunately, that was not the case – the book I read was derivative, the writing never quite feels right, and it was mostly quite boring.

Nihal of the Land of the Wind is a classic coming of age story, of a girl in a man’s world striving to succeed where only men succeed. It’s a world of sorcery, war, magical races, and dragon-riding knights. It’s YA in all the ways that people point to when they want to say something is ‘kids stuff’.

This is rather unfortunate, because the best of YA can handle all of this in a way to be equally engaging to adults and YA. With Nihal of the Land of the Wind, it doesn’t – the story feels like something I’ve read many times before and shows no subtly or grace in pounding it’s message into the reader. I can’t say if something got lost in translation or not, but writing style never clicked with me as it stumbled around. I can see this book being good for pre-teen to early-teen girls – the message isn’t all bad by any means, and they are unlikely to consider it such a derivative story. But it’s not written in a way that will appeal to an audience far beyond that rather specific demographic. In all honesty, I’m rather surprised I finished the book at all.