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3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
this book and the others in the once upon a time series gave fairytale stories a new light.
This was an okay book - didn't seem to hold my interest for very long. I had to read it in short spurts. Got down to the last five pages and couldn't get thru it without falling asleep...
Beginning to wonder if I have ever read or heard Arabian nights?? Gonna have to read it again I guess...
Beginning to wonder if I have ever read or heard Arabian nights?? Gonna have to read it again I guess...
Wow. This book was so good. When I started it, I was like nope. Imma give this book two chapters and then I'm done. This is boring. But as it took off it got better and better, and I'm really glad there are 18 more. Very good short book.
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is the fastest I've read a book in a long time, and that was an incredible feeling. I picked this book up for fifty cents at a used book sale, not realizing that it was even on my "Want To Read" list, so when I discovered that, I was even more excited about it! I've always been intrigued by the tale of Scheherazade (or Shahrazad) and had been looking for adaptations of the story for a while now. What initially intrigued me when I began reading this book was the style in which it's written. It almost reminds me of the way stories in the Bible are told, which felt very fitting for the subject matter and time period, so it drew me in and kept my attention the rest of the way through. My only minor complaint is that when Shahrazad is spinning her tales, I got restless at parts and admittedly skipped ahead a few times. I know her tales were allegorical to the overall story, but I just wanted to get on with the main plot. I've never been a big fan of "stories within stories" though. Ultimately, I greatly enjoyed this book (the romance was adorable, teehee) and it's been great for getting me through these last few weeks of the semester...now that I'm done I don't know what I'll do...I sent home all my other books!!
Good story but hard to follow, the main characters names were too close that I had to keep reminding myself who was who.
DNF @ page 93/44%
I’m so disappointed that I didn’t enjoy this book, but a short fairytale retelling shouldn’t take me over a week to read. I really wanted to enjoy this and was going to try and push through and finish it but unfortunately, I just can’t.
This book has terrible formatting, I don’t know if it’s the way it was uploaded to scribd, but it has strange line breaks that would normally be there when there is a change of scenery but it’s not so this messes with the flow of the story. There are also mistakes that should’ve been caught in editing, one of them I couldn’t even decipher myself.
In a case of ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ I just couldn’t get into the writing style. I understand why this writing style was chosen, it’s a story about a storyteller and old fairytale’s use this style of writing, however, original fairytales were short and not nearly 200 pages. This made the story quite tedious to get through and at times felt quite obnoxious. Also, nearly 50% into the book I feel like I don’t know any of these characters very well, they are too 1 dimensional, I don’t know what they like, how they feel, nothing, they are just terribly boring, again if this was just a short 30-page fairytale I wouldn’t mind, but it’s a book, let me feel something.
I do intend to give other books in this series a try, but unfortunately this was a miss for me.
Initial Thoughts Upon Finishing
Honestly, this was way better than I had hoped it would be. I don't remember where I picked up a copy of this book but I discovered it on my shelf the other day and thought ach, let's give it a go!! I'd completely forgotten what it was about but ended up enjoying it so much! This is such a cute and harmless retelling of 1001 Nights.
The Storyteller's Daughter
So this is a retelling of 1001 Nights, or, The Arabian Nights. If you're familiar with that (or as perhaps more of you, with Renée Ahdieh's [b:The Wrath and the Dawn|18798983|The Wrath and the Dawn (The Wrath and the Dawn, #1)|Renée Ahdieh|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1417956963l/18798983._SY75_.jpg|26724902]) then you'll have a good idea of what is within these pages. I, personally, have not read the original classic and am only familiar with this story through Ahdieh's reimagining of it. So I'm not sure how this differs (I guess . . . this is a lot shorter?) to the classic.
But it's really fun! The whole book is Shahrazad narrating from her old age the true story of her life and what occurred. Essentially, after a curse is put upon the King in this story, he vows to take a new girl as his wife every night and she is to be killed by sunrise of the next day.
This puts the kingdom is chaos and fear because everyone now fears for their daughter's lives. In the original, this is set for 1001 nights and can only be broken by the king essentially falling in true love. I don't think there was ever any mention specifically of the 1001 nights in this retelling but a stipulation is put forward that if the first girl comes willingly to the king then only she will die and every girl who follows will live but be held in isolation.
It's a mess. But the best bit about this story is the fact that Shahrazad, a blind storyteller, has her mother's gift of being the best storyteller in the land. And so a lot of this book is actually the stories that she tells and they're so wonderful and encapturing.
Why I Enjoyed This
I had no expectations of this being a brilliant read going into it. It was a small trade paperback with an uninspiring cover that I'd heard nothing about. It has over 11,000 ratings on Goodreads which is reasonably solid but I was certainly surprised by how I couldn't put this down.
I think, all up, I read this in a matter of hours. The way this tale is narrated makes it really feel like someone is sitting with you, by a fire, with a cup of mulled wine, telling you a grand story. It's magical in that way. And I've always had a weakness for what I'd call traditional storytelling (quite similar to how Robert Louis Stevenson writes).
But the best thing about this book is that it isn't long-winded, it has a fantastic tragic romance, enough princes and kings to cause plenty of trouble and stories you'd want to fill a whole book with. Truth be told, this has really made me think I should go get myself a copy of the original classic because clearly, it's right up my alley.
Summary
As a simple, short and harmless read, I would most definitely be recommending this to you. If you're looking for a break from your standard YA reads - and need something a little less dark, dramatic and tormented - then I would suggest refreshing your mind and whetting your appetite for stories with this little gem.
Happy reading!
Honestly, this was way better than I had hoped it would be. I don't remember where I picked up a copy of this book but I discovered it on my shelf the other day and thought ach, let's give it a go!! I'd completely forgotten what it was about but ended up enjoying it so much! This is such a cute and harmless retelling of 1001 Nights.
The Storyteller's Daughter
So this is a retelling of 1001 Nights, or, The Arabian Nights. If you're familiar with that (or as perhaps more of you, with Renée Ahdieh's [b:The Wrath and the Dawn|18798983|The Wrath and the Dawn (The Wrath and the Dawn, #1)|Renée Ahdieh|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1417956963l/18798983._SY75_.jpg|26724902]) then you'll have a good idea of what is within these pages. I, personally, have not read the original classic and am only familiar with this story through Ahdieh's reimagining of it. So I'm not sure how this differs (I guess . . . this is a lot shorter?) to the classic.
But it's really fun! The whole book is Shahrazad narrating from her old age the true story of her life and what occurred. Essentially, after a curse is put upon the King in this story, he vows to take a new girl as his wife every night and she is to be killed by sunrise of the next day.
This puts the kingdom is chaos and fear because everyone now fears for their daughter's lives. In the original, this is set for 1001 nights and can only be broken by the king essentially falling in true love. I don't think there was ever any mention specifically of the 1001 nights in this retelling but a stipulation is put forward that if the first girl comes willingly to the king then only she will die and every girl who follows will live but be held in isolation.
It's a mess. But the best bit about this story is the fact that Shahrazad, a blind storyteller, has her mother's gift of being the best storyteller in the land. And so a lot of this book is actually the stories that she tells and they're so wonderful and encapturing.
Why I Enjoyed This
I had no expectations of this being a brilliant read going into it. It was a small trade paperback with an uninspiring cover that I'd heard nothing about. It has over 11,000 ratings on Goodreads which is reasonably solid but I was certainly surprised by how I couldn't put this down.
I think, all up, I read this in a matter of hours. The way this tale is narrated makes it really feel like someone is sitting with you, by a fire, with a cup of mulled wine, telling you a grand story. It's magical in that way. And I've always had a weakness for what I'd call traditional storytelling (quite similar to how Robert Louis Stevenson writes).
But the best thing about this book is that it isn't long-winded, it has a fantastic tragic romance, enough princes and kings to cause plenty of trouble and stories you'd want to fill a whole book with. Truth be told, this has really made me think I should go get myself a copy of the original classic because clearly, it's right up my alley.
Summary
As a simple, short and harmless read, I would most definitely be recommending this to you. If you're looking for a break from your standard YA reads - and need something a little less dark, dramatic and tormented - then I would suggest refreshing your mind and whetting your appetite for stories with this little gem.
Happy reading!
Actual rating 2.5
I would just like to preface this by saying that this review is about the specific edition I read (the mass marked paper back with the photo of a girl as opposed to a drawing). There was a typo in my copy on page 13 "At this Shahraze day, whenad stirred...". This isn't some indy/self-published book. I don't know how the editor missed that. But, for all I know, other editions fixed it, so I'd give the other editions a tentative 3 stars.
Now, my actual problems. First, the names. I get that Shahrazad's name has multiple, equally valid, spellings, but there are two other characters in this book called Sharayar and Shazaman. Is there a reason the author didn't use the Scheherazade spelling instead to keep things a bit less confusing?
Second, the romance. We just get told they're falling in love, but the book is too short, and has to dedicate too much of its time to actually telling us the stories, to be able to actually show them falling for each other. Also, being in love somehow magically lets Shahrazad (who's blind) pick Sharayar out of a crowd at one point. No, book, that's not how that works. If you wanted that to work, you should've established it much better.
Lastly, the stories. The book kind of shot itself in the foot by showing us presumably what Shahrazad said word-for-word. What we see in the book wouldn't take all night to tell; they probably wouldn't even take a half hour. That being said, I did greatly enjoy them. I also really liked the dreamy, fairy-tale quality of the writing. The author did a good job of making the novel feel like it was a particularly long story that was being told to me by a storyteller.
I would just like to preface this by saying that this review is about the specific edition I read (the mass marked paper back with the photo of a girl as opposed to a drawing). There was a typo in my copy on page 13 "At this Shahraze day, whenad stirred...". This isn't some indy/self-published book. I don't know how the editor missed that. But, for all I know, other editions fixed it, so I'd give the other editions a tentative 3 stars.
Now, my actual problems. First, the names. I get that Shahrazad's name has multiple, equally valid, spellings, but there are two other characters in this book called Sharayar and Shazaman. Is there a reason the author didn't use the Scheherazade spelling instead to keep things a bit less confusing?
Second, the romance. We just get told they're falling in love, but the book is too short, and has to dedicate too much of its time to actually telling us the stories, to be able to actually show them falling for each other. Also, being in love somehow magically lets Shahrazad (who's blind) pick Sharayar out of a crowd at one point. No, book, that's not how that works. If you wanted that to work, you should've established it much better.
Lastly, the stories. The book kind of shot itself in the foot by showing us presumably what Shahrazad said word-for-word. What we see in the book wouldn't take all night to tell; they probably wouldn't even take a half hour. That being said, I did greatly enjoy them. I also really liked the dreamy, fairy-tale quality of the writing. The author did a good job of making the novel feel like it was a particularly long story that was being told to me by a storyteller.