Woven in Moonlight by Isabel Ibanez is a YA fantasy novel about two groups at civil war with each other. The Llacsans and Illustrians are trying to keep and install, respectively, their preferred leader of La Ciudad. Atoc, the King of the Llacsans, demands the Condessa's hand in marriage, so the decoy Condessa, Ximena, goes in the Condessa's place and tries to find a relic that will destroy Atoc and the Llacsans so the real Condessa can take the throne.
I want to preface this with I am not a fantasy reader. I have not read the popular fantasy series all over TikTok and bookstagram, and I don't have a need to. However, I don't let the genre of a book dissuade me from reading it. I picked this book because it was a Literary League pick in 2020, and I want to finish the backlist of the book clubs I follow so I can read the picks in real time at some point.
Something I liked about this novel is the use of Spanish and Bolivian words throughout the text. I studied Linguistics as my second major in college, so I always like seeing languages I am unfamiliar with and looking up the word's translation as I'm reading. I think it's a really great way to dip your toes into learning about a different culture and place. The glossary in the back was really helpful, and I especially liked how some of the characters' names had special meanings that gave you a sense of the character's personality or identity.
I'm also not really sure if I'm more grown out of YA novels than I thought I was, so the book just seemed very unlike what I typically read, which is not the book's fault, but it's just not something I would have picked up on my own since it's pretty far outside of my usual genres. This book has a sequel, Written in Starlight, but I don't think I'll be reading it.
Have you read Woven in Moonlight? Let me know your thoughts of it!
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