Book review: The Tyrant's Daughter by J.C. Carleson

When her father is killed in a coup, 15-year-old Laila flees from the war-torn middle east to a life of exile and anonymity in the U.S. Gradually she adjusts to a new school, new friends, and a new culture, but while Laila sees opportunity in her new life, her mother is focused on the past. She’s conspiring with CIA operatives and rebel factions to regain the throne their family lost. Laila can’t bear to stand still as an international crisis takes shape around her, but how can one girl stop a conflict that spans generations? 

Received from NetGalley in return for a review.

The Tyrant’s Daughter might seem like it’s trying to be an issue book at first, and I’d say that it is.  It’s a big issue book, dealing with a lot of different things at once.  There’s the big plot, of course, of the main character and her family escaping from their country in the midst of a rebellion, but then it gets down to the fact that their culture is nothing like ours.

They’re outsiders in a land that is so different from their own, and it’s a little uncomfortable reading it.  Not a bad uncomfortable, but I think it’s what the author was trying to accomplish with it: that even if someone is willing to learn and try to assimilate into a new culture, there’s always something about it that they just can’t get used to.  Laila protests fitting in at first, but when she realizes that she’s being just as judgmental of her possible friends as many people are of her, she relaxes.

Of course all of this is happening while Laila is slowly learning that her family’s position in their country wasn’t what she thought it was.  She had been brought up believing that they’re royalty, when it was really a dictatorship.  While some might say that it would be hard to believe that she had never even suspected it, it reads as pretty believable to me.  And the fact that she gets swept up in the affairs the government agent is trying to get her mother to be a part of just makes it easier to believe that Laila would be easily fooled.  She was brought up sheltered, even on those trips to France that she lovingly describes.

The ending, while I won’t give spoilers, is bittersweet and fits, I think.  The entire book is a pretty interesting ride, and I believe Carleson succeeded in showing us a story about a displaced girl trying to find her way.  So, happy reading!