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Hi everyone. I'm Catriona and today I'm going
to be doing a spoiler free review of
The Wrath & the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh.
This is a retelling or reimagining of A Thousand
and One Nights. Khalid is the Caliph of
Khorasan and every night he takes a new bride,
but come morning she is dead with
a silver cord around her neck.
Then we have Shahrazad, also known as Shazi,
whose best friend Shiva was one of the king's
brides that was killed. So she decides to
volunteer as tribute and be one of
the king's new brides and use that
opportunity to take revenge and kill him.
She manages to survive that first night
and learns that not everything is as it seems.
The Wrath & the Dawn is
definitely going to be one of my
favorite books of 2016. (2017)
I think it kind of made me fall in love with reading again.
It's just been so long since I've read a book
that made me want to stay up all night reading it.
I just fell in love with the book so much.
The writing is absolutely beautiful.
It has such vivid descriptions of the setting.
The setting is influenced by Persia and we get
really rich descriptions of the desert environment
as well as the clothes and even the food.
My gosh. There were so many
really delicious descriptions of the food.
Like, I felt so hungry sometimes when I was reading it.
And the way in which the world building is done
with all of this description it was
really subtle and seamless as well.
We're given enough detail to really vividly paint
this world in our mind but this
information isn't dumped on us in such a
way that it felt like it was forcefully
building this really diverse setting.
I really enjoyed the story as well.
I'm not really familiar with the original A
Thousand and One Nights tale so going into
this it felt really fresh to me, not
having that background knowledge, I think.
This is also a fantasy so there are some
elements of magic that we're introduced
to but it doesn't go into very much
detail about it so I don't think I've
got a really strong idea of what the
magic system really is. So I'm hoping
that in the second book this is kind of
explored a little more and is explained
in a little more detail.
As a first book as well there are so many secrets and
so many mysterious pasts. There's just a lot
of questions that I have that aren't
actually answered in this first book.
So I feel that this does set up quite a bit for a sequel.
I need to read The Rose & the Dagger
soon because I want my questions answered.
And I just think that the action and the tension
is really going to ramp up in that second book.
With the exception of Tariq, who is Shazi's first love,
I either absolutely adored or either was
really really fascinated by all of the
characters that we meet in this book.
I just found the cast of characters that
we meet so incredibly compelling.
I just wanted to know all about everyone's
motivations and their desires.
The way in which these characters were written,
I was just so interested in all of them.
So we have Shazi who was really strong, passionate.
She's extremely clever. She's very silver-tongued,
stubborn and quite honestly she could be a bit of a brat.
But I didn't actually find myself irritated by
that trait and I--I think that I kind of
attribute that to the fact that Despina,
her handmaiden, called her out when she
was being a pain in the butt.
Despina really complimented Shazi in that way
and it led to a lot of really snarky
banter that I found hilarious and I just
think we get to see the beginning of
what I hope is a really really strong
female friendship, particularly in the second book.
Then we have Khalid who is
very stoic and mysterious.
It took me a little longer to warm up to him than
Shazi did and at some points I was a
little bit irritated by his terseness,
but as we actually go through the story
and learn more about him and peel back those layers
we see the complexities of his character.
By the end I found him to
be a really, really interesting character
and honestly quite romantic at times.
We also have Jalal who I fell in love with
from the beginning. He was just so witty
and I loved how playful he was
particularly when he's interacting with Shazi.
He is Khalid's cousin and I think
it was a really good balance for Khalid, as well.
We also have Rahim who I think
was quite similar to Jalal in his role
as being kind of like that supporting
sidekick character to Tariq, as Jalal was to Khalid.
Though out of the side characters particularly those
that are a little more central to the story I found
him to be probably the least developed.
So... Tariq. I hated him. I really didn't
like him as a character but at the same
time I don't think we're supposed to really like him.
I wasn't really interested in his storyline.
I think this is partly because I don't think he
really believes that Shazi can actually
take care of herself, even with the fact
that every one of Khalid's previous wives
has been killed and Shazi not only
survived the first night, but has
managed to survive for weeks and weeks after that.
Obviously she's doing something right
and has managed to not get herself killed.
I understand where Tariq is coming from,
like he doesn't actually know Khalid
like Shazi does, so he only sees this monster.
But I feel like he only really sees Shazi as like this
damsel in distress, and I don't think he
really acknowledges the fact that she is
this really strong and independent person.
So seeing that in contrast to
Shazi's point of view where we do witness
her being this really strong and clever woman,
it just made me really dislike Tariq.
Then we also have characters like Rajput
and Yasmine and Jahandar and the Sultan of Parthia.
There's just so many side characters
that we get a glimpse of that really
piqued my interest and I just want to get in
their heads and learn all about them.
With the romance in this book it's
definitely a case of a hate turned love relationship.
So if you're not a fan of that hate-to-love
trope then you might not be
as invested in the romance as I was,
but I just really, really enjoyed it.
I will admit though that I feel like
Shahrzad kind of went from this,
"Must kill the king!" to being attracted to him
a little too easily. I didn't think there
was a really strong enough reason from
her to make that switch so soon.
Even still, I adored seeing their relationship flourish.
There was a lot of *** tension
and so many swoon-worthy quotes,
and I mean, the way that their romance
started definitely wasn't ideal. You know,
there's a lot of hatred and animosity
there and, you know, the threat of being
killed by the other one. As we progress
there are also still a lot of secrets
between the two of them, but as Shazi and
Khalid learn about each other and their
histories and some of these secrets
bubble to the surface, I just really
adored seeing the two of them overcome
all of that crap and not only grow
stronger from all of it but learn to
really trust each other.
They just grew to love each other selflessly and I just swoooon...
And I think the two of them work
really well not only as a couple but as
a king and a queen that would really,
really successfully rule over Khorasan.
The Wrath & the Dawn was just such a
satisfying, satisfying book to read,
except for you know, the way that things
ended so abruptly. I need more of this story.
I need to know how things continue in the sequel.
I just really ship Shazi and Khalid so much.
It's been a while since I've been
this invested in a romance as well.
I ended up giving The Wrath & the Dawn 5 out of 5 stars.
I absolutely loved it and would definitely recommend it.
Those are my thoughts on the book.
Thank you so much for watching,
and I hope you guys enjoyed this review.
If you've read the book as well,
then I'd definitely be interested in hearing your thoughts.
Did you love it as much as I did?
But I will see you tomorrow with a new video,
so until next time, I'll see you in the comments. Bye!