Fiction

Reviewed by Fariha

You are not weak. You are not indecisive. You are strong. Fierce. Capable beyond measure.

The Wrath and the Dawn is an intense, romantic and magical book that takes the reader to a palace centuries before. The book is well rounded in nearly every aspect with great characters, relatable and believable banter and relationships, atmospheric settings and lush writing. I flew through the book and all the while, my life was more focused on the story than my actual life.

The story consumed me and took over all my senses because of how vividly Ahdieh painted the pictures. Her writing is woven like a spider’s web, each word is chosen as precisely for the sentence as each strand of silk, each leaf on a tree and she somehow captures smells within words, all the while managing to keep a balance of gorgeous, flowing prose and not straying towards overcompensating, lengthy metaphors or mindless descriptions. I am in awe. She makes me want to knit words that fit together snugly and bring the reader warmth.

I’m not here to fight. I’m here to win.

Above anything else, I am here for the characters. Shahrzad is the sort of young woman I enjoy both reading about and being friends with, both in book and real life. She feels real, she is ambitious, she is sarcastic and sassy, and she is intelligent; she is loyal and cunning and confident but does not lack insecurities. She has a spine of steel and her biting remarks hit the mark just as surely as her arrow does. She is the sort of woman I want to be; the one who is willing to go to any length to do what she wants; the one who ask ‘why not’ to every ‘why’; the one who doesn’t need 127 years to come up with the perfect comeback; the one who knows what she deserves and will settle for nothing less. It’s great to have her in a novel because often, in YA, the main characters are blurry, distorted versions of the same person; this relatable figure we’re supposed to find endearing and everyone is supposed to see themselves in her. Shazi is not that sort of person, she’s one who most people will see themselves in for a scene or two, an action or a dialogue because we’re not all supposed to be able to see ourselves in a character, humanity is not so similar but she is someone people can root for and stand behind. Also, she’s a total Slytherin and that’s a great thing in my book.

This dangerous girl. This captivating beauty. This destroyer of worlds and creator of wonder.

I loved the banter between characters. I snickered and I laughed because the characters never miss a chance to plug in that sarcastic joke. The interactions between friends were great and I’m very relieved to see that there are some friendships portrayed in the book. Despina and Shazi were quite the pair and I am eager to see their friendship hopefully evolve and grow throughout the next installment.

Shazi had a life and friends and other relationships before the start of the book. She didn’t just pop out of thin air and suddenly start living this life. She has history and old friends and lovers. There are too many books when the character only seems to barely have a thing from their old life, as if they ceased to exist before the beginning of the books.

So I write it to the sky—

I love you, a thousand times over. And I will never apologize for it.

One drawback for me that has nothing to do with the actual book is that I know various people by the names of these characters and certain times, I could not take the character seriously because of it. Rahim was no matter because it’s a common name and I don’t associate any single person  with said name. Khalid was another story entirely because I only know one person with that name, he is in my class and is everything the book character is not and vice versa. While I ship Khalid and Shazi with all my heart, I just could not get into Khalid as a love interest because of my other associations with that name. Totally a problem on my part but it distracted me throughout the book.

I also found some things to be melodramatic or over the top. An example is “Shahrzad buried her face in the cushions and began to sob.” That sentence may not bother many people but I could not stand it, I feel the urge to groan and roll my eyes while reading that sentences. Some interactions were also the same way but, thankfully, those were few and far in between.

Communication was definitely lacking in the book. I know it serves a very, very good purpose and is sort of essential to the story but pet peeves are hard to ignore.

Some things exist in our lives for but a brief moment. And we must let them go on to light another sky.

Overall, awesome book, please read and come to the corner with me so that we can cry together. This is one story that stays long after the pages are read.

Parting advice, I suggest that you keep the Rose and the Dagger close by when you finish this book because the ending will leave you yearning and desperate for more. I don’t know how people survived a year long wait if they read this book when it first came out. I could barely survive the school day and couldn’t wait to go home and grab the next book The ending is intense, leaves as many questions as it answers and instills the need to get you hands on the next book. So, do keep it close by.

Place a hold on this book. Also available as an ebook.