Reviews

4.5 stars!

Ah, Tahereh Mafi, you did it again. This is a great book!

Ok…. Here are some of my thoughts: I want to like Cyrus but I just love Kamran too much. I hope everything works out for Kamran in this series. Also, I just can’t get over Cyrus kidnapping Alizeh to root for him instead; it just seems too Stockholm syndrome-ish for me. However, these characters have complicated backgrounds so I’m giving them a shot.

Now to wait for the next book. Def recommend!

bluest_spring's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

aurorasky2025's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

6/5 SCREAMING book two was even BETTER! Idk how this series isn’t as hyped up as it SHOULD BE, Autumn we will be debriefing on this more BC CYRUS IS PHENOMENAL, YEARNING AND ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC DOWN BAD-NESS, CHEFS KISS

armstrongangela83's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.5

valeriaq24's review against another edition

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adventurous funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

malibee's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

ariw's review against another edition

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1.0

Wow — I'd enjoyed the first book fairly well, but this was a terrible follow up. Literally nothing happens. Over 402 pages, the only plot is that

Spoiler

Alizeh arrives with Cyrus at his city, cries a lot, has a bath, changes into a new see-through silk dress to replace her torn see-through silk dress, eats some bread, and has a million conflicting feelings about Cyrus (who is briefly tortured beside her in a random flower field) and argues with him multiple times about marrying or not marrying him (it... varies); Kamran doesn't die, gets changed into a few different outfits in varying shades of blue, yells at his new adviser, yells at his old friend, is locked in a tower, and flies away with a random group of the only named side characters from the previous book on the back of giant birds. Most of this happens in the last 100 pages. The whole thing covers the course of (less than?) a day. Nothing makes any sense, and it's all written in endless florid prose that I ended up having to skim most of (I did go back to check I hadn't missed anything — I really hadn't. Lines like "Were Kamran a different sort of man, he might've acquiesced then to a terrifying compulsion. He felt in that moment nothing greater than an ancient impulse to cry, valiantly resisting the instinct even as a flare of grief tore through him." — literally every line continues like this, as nothing happens, for pages on pages on pages).

Only even writing this now to remind my future self not to bother reading the third book.

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