Fiction

The Rose and the Dagger by Renée Ahdieh
Reviewed by Fariha

From the stars, to the stars.

To be quite honest, I had high expectations for the ending of this duology and not all of them were quite met. However, it was still an enjoyable ride. So, 3.5 stars for the slightly-not-as-epic-as-one-would-hope, magical, lyrical conclusion to the Wrath and the Dawn duology.

The characters were awesome, once again. I loved them and watching their character developments come to an arc made me feel like a doting mother and a proud friend. I also love how some of the secondary characters from the first book had a larger part in the book, such as Irsa, and each character has their own story that intertwines with the main plot. Makes the characters and the world seem more alive, I find.

Give me a meaningful love or a beautiful death!

We also got to explore the magical aspects of the world, which was very interesting and curious. There are some cool things that had me very excited and even though we were given some information, I wanted some more history of how some of the magic came to be.

It was because they were two parts of a whole. He did not belong to her. And she did not belong to him. It was never about belonging to someone. It was about belonging together.

Even with the love interest and Shazi being apart, it doesn’t affect the enjoyability of the novel, which is great. Often, whenever the romantic interests are apart in a novel, the story loses a bit of life and all you want is for the two to come together again. However, while you want with all your heart for Shazi and Khalid to be reunited again, the book is still full of plot and characters and intensity. Sharzad’s storyline is interesting and engaging by itself and same for Khalid, so even when the two aren’t together at the same place, their stories do not leave the reader wanting.

Destiny was for fools. Sharzad would not wait for her life to happen. She would make it happen.

There are not as much female friendship as I had hoped in the books. It made sense and there was some form of it toward the end when there was a chance but I still wish there was more. I do appreciate that there was a development of the sisterly relationship, though, because I think good sisters are even rarer than good girl friends in young adult.

It's much easier to hate a memory. I would know.

The last 100 pages were underwhelming to me. Things happened but some of it seemed too easy and some of it moved too fast. At times, it was intense and demanding in places that didn’t need to be but lacking in places that required intensity. There were a couple chapters that I wanted to have been rearranged because that would’ve increased the impact, I think. There was a part where I could feel my heart shattering to pieces but I was not given time to grieve because we just moved on and went on to the next thing, and my feelings kind of were put on hold/disappeared because I was focused on what was happening. This is incredibly vague because I don’t want to spoil the ending (I mean, clearly. Who would?) and so you can’t really understand what I’m saying but I’ll express my opinion anyway.

Despite some short-comings, the second and last installment of The Wrath and the Dawn is a fitting conclusion to this magical and addicting duology.

The Rose and the Dagger is also available as an ebook.

And an e-audiobook!