Synopsis:
When Empress starts at Aniya’s school, they’re not exactly best friends. But, when the two teenage girls accidentally cast a spell on their 16th birthday and end up switching bodies, they quickly learn that friendship is the most important magic of all.
South London’s answer to Freaky Friday, Empress & Aniya is a moving portrayal of the importance of real friendship and the ups and downs of being a teenager.
Review:
Empress and Aniya is a very quick read that’s fun to check out if you have Audible Plus. I think this is also available as an Ebook, but I listened to the audiobook (as you can tell from the title of this post). The narrator, Nia Deacon, did an incredible job. I’m not always a big fan of single narration books but they were very entertaining, didn’t try too hard to put on voices and were just all round great.
I really enjoyed the Freaky Friday twist of this book. It was such a good way to ‘show how the other half live’. Empress and Aniya’s home lives couldn’t be more different and the fact that they got to experience that as the other person gave them both pretty big character growth. Especially Aniya as she’s used to a life of luxury with loving parents.
I do think this was a little too short though. Everything happens very quickly, so the only part that I thought was well developed was the friendship between Empress and Aniya. It’s so nice to see a healthy teen girl relationship in any media. You do get your typical mean girls though, which I really hate. It’s an overdone trope that we really need to move past.
There’s not really much else to comment on for this book. It’s really short and as it’s aimed at younger audiences, there’s not a lot of depth to the plot. The characters do feel very fleshed out and real though.
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