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A review by jodi_ice
Empress & Aniya by Candice Carty-Williams
3.0
Cawpile: 3.5* 6.64
*Spoiler alert incase the app tab doesn’t work*
I really wanted to like this. From the blurb it sounded like a fresh kind of take on freaky Friday.
However. All the swap really did was make the two of them spend time together that they probably would have done, or would have done in time anyway with their growing friendship.
The blurb paints the two as ‘not exactly best friends’ and while this may be true it’s not for the sake of personality, it’s more that they hardly know each other. To be honest how deep their friendship actually is for how long they have known each other is quite surprising. I mean the first time they meet Aniya isn’t exactly kind to Empress, yet within days she is running round doing whatever she can for her new friend. The turnaround in attitude towards Empress is very quick and their friendship quickly grows.
They are staying over at Aniya’s house on their shared birthday when they perform the spell that causes the swap, just the two of them, not like a mass sleepover, does that sound like something two 15 year old girls who didn’t like each other would do?
No, this swap certainly highlighted the differences that Empress had been hiding from Aniya but it wasn’t anything like it could have potentially been had the two girls not already known a lot about each other and been with each other for the whole swap.
Also- the ending. Now, I’m sorry, but maybe it’s just me, but I don’t know anyone who would leave a baby with a woman who had left said baby *alone* in the flat mere hours earlier. And if reporting that to social services meant that sadly Empress also had to go into the system and couldn’t immediately be placed with them, then it’s sad but it’s what happens. It’s more responsible than leaving a baby with a verbally and physically abusive and irresponsible parent who abandoned their baby in a flat, and when the baby wasn’t alone it was left with her other minor child…The fact it ended well was probably more dumb luck than anything else.
So I’m sorry but it was a miss for me. I know I’m not the target for it, but I do read a lot in many age brackets so I don’t think my age has influenced this review.
*Spoiler alert incase the app tab doesn’t work*
I really wanted to like this. From the blurb it sounded like a fresh kind of take on freaky Friday.
However. All the swap really did was make the two of them spend time together that they probably would have done, or would have done in time anyway with their growing friendship.
The blurb paints the two as ‘not exactly best friends’ and while this may be true it’s not for the sake of personality, it’s more that they hardly know each other. To be honest how deep their friendship actually is for how long they have known each other is quite surprising. I mean the first time they meet Aniya isn’t exactly kind to Empress, yet within days she is running round doing whatever she can for her new friend. The turnaround in attitude towards Empress is very quick and their friendship quickly grows.
They are staying over at Aniya’s house on their shared birthday when they perform the spell that causes the swap, just the two of them, not like a mass sleepover, does that sound like something two 15 year old girls who didn’t like each other would do?
No, this swap certainly highlighted the differences that Empress had been hiding from Aniya but it wasn’t anything like it could have potentially been had the two girls not already known a lot about each other and been with each other for the whole swap.
Also- the ending. Now, I’m sorry, but maybe it’s just me, but I don’t know anyone who would leave a baby with a woman who had left said baby *alone* in the flat mere hours earlier. And if reporting that to social services meant that sadly Empress also had to go into the system and couldn’t immediately be placed with them, then it’s sad but it’s what happens. It’s more responsible than leaving a baby with a verbally and physically abusive and irresponsible parent who abandoned their baby in a flat, and when the baby wasn’t alone it was left with her other minor child…The fact it ended well was probably more dumb luck than anything else.
So I’m sorry but it was a miss for me. I know I’m not the target for it, but I do read a lot in many age brackets so I don’t think my age has influenced this review.