The ruler of Khorasan, a boy-king, takes a new bride every evening, just to have her end up dead by the time the sun rises again. When Shahrzad's best friend Shiva is forced to marry him and gets murdered by him, Shahrzad wants vengeance and volunteers to be the king's next wife. She achieves something none of the girls did before her: She manages to live until dawn.
"No. He was not here to wreak revenge. For revenge was trifling and hollow.
No. He was not here to retrieve his wife. For his wife was not a thing to be retrieved.
No. He was not here to negotiate a truce. For a truce suggested he wished to compromise.
He was here to burn something to the ground."
The thing I love most about these two books is definitely the setting. Renée Ahdieh manages to create such a beautiful and unique atmosphere with her descriptions about the clothing, buildings, nature and food and by adding a few Persian words and phrases the world feels pretty realistic. The storyline is good, it's certainly gripping, but nothing too special. To be honest, I could've gladly passed the whole love triangle up and I definitely didn't need that many quarrels between Khalid and Tariq. Their small "battles" just seem like pissing contests between two premature teenagers and that's exactly the way they acted around each other, which I thought is simply stupid and annoying. The romance in this book was definitely bearable and quite cute and even though it is one of the biggest main aspects in this story, there isn't too much of it. For some reason I assumed that this series is a trilogy when it actually consists of only two books so the ending really caught me off-guard and I wasn't expecting it, since it's in general pretty short and feels rather rushed. I also can't see the point of the last kind of climax in the story, since the event is undone anyway, so why is it really necessary?
Shahrzad is in my opinion a completely average main character, I did enjoy reading from her perspective and I do like her, but she's not gonna become one of my favorites since I just didn't have any kind of "connection" to her. However, I really liked the big role Shahrzad's little sister Irsa played in the second book in the series and honestly prefer her over Shahrzad. I can relate to her a lot, she's pretty much the opposite of Shahrzad, since she's rather calm, shy and quite insecure. Because I often experience feelings similar to hers it was amazing and empowering to see Irsa overcome her fears and develope into an independant and strong character. The relationship between Shahrzad and Irsa is just beautiful and made me realize once more how lucky I am to have siblings. The only character I thought was pretty much unnecessary and didn't "deserve" the big role he plays is Shahrzad's and Irsa's father Jahandar. Of course it was nice to have him add a bit more magic to the story, but I couldn't care less about him. He annoyed me (actually not just me but all the other characters as well) the whole time and I didn't care one bit whether he survived or is happy or is gonna suceed or not, and at some points I even hoped he would finally die, not because he's a horrible or cruel character that I hate, but simply because he bothered me so much. What I enjoyed a lot however is how strong and independant women are portrayed in these books and it's so satisfying to see them achieve so much despite their, in comparison with men, rather low social position and their "lack" of physical strength.
Shahrzad is in my opinion a completely average main character, I did enjoy reading from her perspective and I do like her, but she's not gonna become one of my favorites since I just didn't have any kind of "connection" to her. However, I really liked the big role Shahrzad's little sister Irsa played in the second book in the series and honestly prefer her over Shahrzad. I can relate to her a lot, she's pretty much the opposite of Shahrzad, since she's rather calm, shy and quite insecure. Because I often experience feelings similar to hers it was amazing and empowering to see Irsa overcome her fears and develope into an independant and strong character. The relationship between Shahrzad and Irsa is just beautiful and made me realize once more how lucky I am to have siblings. The only character I thought was pretty much unnecessary and didn't "deserve" the big role he plays is Shahrzad's and Irsa's father Jahandar. Of course it was nice to have him add a bit more magic to the story, but I couldn't care less about him. He annoyed me (actually not just me but all the other characters as well) the whole time and I didn't care one bit whether he survived or is happy or is gonna suceed or not, and at some points I even hoped he would finally die, not because he's a horrible or cruel character that I hate, but simply because he bothered me so much. What I enjoyed a lot however is how strong and independant women are portrayed in these books and it's so satisfying to see them achieve so much despite their, in comparison with men, rather low social position and their "lack" of physical strength.
Rating: 4.5/5 ✹
I'll be really busy with studying for exams for the next three weeks so I probably won't be able to write any reviews, but I'll still try my best to at least post a book tag once a week. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this review. Have a wonderful day!
Leah
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