Rating: 3.5/5

Overall, I fairly enjoyed Daughters of Nri by Reni K. Amayo. It was really fun and quite a light read but I do have some problems with it sadly.

The Plot: Daughters of Nri is based on African Mythology in the Kingdom of Nri in Nigeria. Having two twins girl who grew up believing they are humans when in reality they are a goddess. While the premise of the story is interesting and seems to be really strong, the story sadly fell flat. The plot felt really lost and it wasn't really even there. The conflict was quite clear but there was no buildup towards the main conflict and its climax actually, it felt as though there was no climax in the story at all. Talking about the story buildup, it felt as though there was no build up in the story, having no sitting to the edge type of situation, making me feel really comfortable sitting down. While the premise of the plot seemed to be full of edge sitting and buildup, the execution wasn't there sadly. It felt as though there was no middle and only a beginning and an end. I was really hoping the plot will start to solidify but it only seemed to be a puddle right now. This novel felt more of a prequel to the first book in a series rather than the first book of a series. The plot felt as though it needed to be more flushed out cause I felt it's potential throughout the entire novel but due to its falling flat, it made the story pacing and character development very strange. I really wished this plot was more flushed out because the potential was there its just the story didn't seem ready and felt like a first draft.

The Writing: The style of writing was really unique and something I personally haven't seen done before. In general, I really enjoyed Amayo's writing style in the third person, however, there were some issues with it. To start off, the pace was really weird and inconsistent throughout the entire novel. The pacing was slow but at the same time, it wasn't...? The pacing was something that probably confused me the most throughout the entire time. The pacing felt as though it was going really quickly but it felt as though nothing was going on. I don't know, the entire pacings of the novel just made no sense. Having a duel point of view, Naala and Sinai, it seemed as though the two-point of views had a hard time matching up with pacing, which made the entire pacing as a whole very strange. Second off, the ending felt really rushed compared to the rest of the story. While the rest of the story felt slow, the ending came and went really quickly at the point where I didn't even realize it was already done.

Spoiler

The fight against Naala, Sinai, and Eze went by so quickly it didn't even make a big impact on me when they both killed The Eze. I felt if there were more buildup to the fight against Eze would've had much more of an impact but it fell really flat and almost felt boring sadly.

I wished there were more of a buildup towards the ending because that's what made the entire novel feel flat and not as exciting as it should've been.

The Characters: Naala and Sinia are our two main characters. Twin girls who are very similar despite never meeting or knowing each other and being in two completely different places. I loved both Naala and Sinai's character and seeing how they work and think and react to different situations. Personally I felt more drawn into Sinai's storyline compare to Naala due to the fact Sinai's storyline seemed to have much more action occurring and had a much faster-pacing comparing to Naala's storyline, which made me confused during times. However, there was little to no character development from the start to the end of the novel and very little background information about the two. Although we learned about the two throughout the novel, it seemed it wasn't enough for me to gain a strong connection for the two. I did enjoy reading about the two twins but I wished that the characters were slightly more introduced and had more development and time to learn about them.

Overall, I did enjoy Daughter of Nri by Reni K. Amayo. It was a quick and easy read and didn't hurt my head too much with learning about the world the two girls are in. Although there are quite a lot of flaws in this novel, with having more of a prequel feel, I feel as though the second book will finally be more fill with action and fastpaced with the way this book ended. I would read this again if I ever need to read something light and simple.