(again....sorry for the shitty picture....the lazy is strong with me)
Summary: A girl volunteers as tribute to a Caliph who keeps murdering his wives every morning, one of whom was her best friend. Naturally they fall in love. Has some Arabian Nights story telling in it. Some shit happens. Eh?
3.5 stars (dropped from 5 stars)
3.5 stars is not a bad rating. It just hit me after a few weeks that I didn't love this book as much as I did whilst I was reading it. Haha
I'm not really sure how I want to organize this review, so I'm just going to talk about my feelings and we'll see where this goes from there. Hopefully there will be some organization involved...Hahahaha 😅
For starters, I really wasn't too into the characters. I can't really think of one character that I was really excited for. Shahrzad was annoying for most of the book and I REALLY hated when it was in Tariq's perspective. He did NOTHING for me and I kind of wish he wasn't needed in the story. Shazi (Shahrzad) was just annoying and, to me, a typical YA female protagonist. Trust issues and a mission to complete but then forgets all about it when she falls in love. Instantly.
Yes, this has some insta-love in it. Barf. I mean it wasn't INSTANT..but it was too soon for my liking. I would have been perfectly ok if nothing happened until the end...or there was no romance in it at all. Why couldn't this have just been a fantasy/revenge story with some mystery? Why does everything have to have a romance in it?! SCHTAP IT YA AUTHORS!!!! NOT EVERY GIRL NEEDS A MAN!!! I liked that Shazi tried to uncover why Khalid (the Caliph) was killing all those girls and even though she did fall in love with Khalid, she never lost sight of the reason she was there. She would mention that she was upset that she liked him but how he had killed her best friend and many other innocent girls. That redeemed the book a bit....but not really by much.
I really liked the story telling element that Renee Ahdieh had in the beginning. Shazi would tell Khalid a story every night to keep her alive until the next day and it was really nice to hear the stories from Arabian Nights, a book I had a really hard time reading because of all the names. I wish that had carried through the book more. The author, at one point, decides that it's not necessary anymore and we stop getting stories. If I remember right...this is the premise of Arabian Nights? They are a bunch of short stories told to a Sultan who is murdery? Or was that just a Looney Toons short? Someone will correct me. Haha! I feel like that was lost and I wanted more! I don't think we'll be getting anymore of it in the second book...bummer.
I did really like the idea of the world. There was some interesting magic happening that I want to learn more about. And we got a VERY small taste of what the world outside the caliphate was like and I want to know more. Hopefully we will...because after the events of the first book...we kind of need to know more.
As much as I think I bitched during this review, I don't think this is a bad book at all. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who asked me. The atmosphere was great and the magic and world look really interesting. This is a good introduction to Middle Eastern story telling without all of the complicated names that can sometimes come along with it....and the family histories...Which are very important to Middle Eastern story telling but can be daunting to someone with isn't familiar with that part of the world. I'm really hoping the second book (this is a duology by the way) expands on the things that were really good about this book and that some of the things I didn't like get fixed.
I think that's all I have to say? I have no idea if this is coherent or just a cluster fumble of nonesense...but I suppose someone will tell me if this is shit. Hahahaha!
If you've read this book, tell me what you thought about it? What did you like or not like? Let's start a conversation!
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Until next time! Stay awesome!
~Momes (Momo)
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