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j1nxc 's review for:
We Hunt the Flame
by Hafsah Faizal
adventurous
dark
hopeful
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
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Ûļā§ đđĄđ đĢđđđđŠ. we hunt the flame follows the story of two individuals- zafira, a huntress pretending to be a man, approached by a witch who swears that she can restore magic to the world and save zafira's village, and nasir, the son of the sultan and an assassin who is sent on the same mission to restore magic and also to kill zafira. along with a few others, they do manage to bring magic back, but free the evil lion of the night in the process.
Ûļā§ đđĄđ đđĄđđĢđđđđđĢđŦ.
â đŗđđđĸđĢđ. zafira suffered from a serious case of y/n syndrome throughout the entire story anyway, since she's somehow connected to the lion of the night and also has powers hidden in her and then she starts hearing voices n shit, but when it came to nasir every single aspect of her strong rebellious personality just disappeared. she was a blushing mess and was just like "uwu nasir you're hurt let me climb in your lap and touch your abs uwuwuwuwuwu." like ma'am wtf. dare i say she had more chemistry with altair (even though it's clear that the author was trying to pair him up with kifah.)
â đ§đđŦđĸđĢ. nasir treated zafira like SHIT the whole time, he was so back and forth with liking her and then remembering that he's supposed to kill her but then not wanting to kill her because he likes her but then pushing her away because he's not supposed to like her.
Ûļā§ đđĄđ đŠđĨđ¨đ. to be quite honest, i'm not really sure what happened in this book at all. the writing was very beautiful and suuuuper descriptive, but it was almost too much. it felt like a textbook at times and was very hard to follow. i genuinely couldn't read more than like 40-50 pages at a time and i was constantly going back and re-reading things because i just couldn't process it the first time. i appreciate the writing style and it's a warm welcome compared to the "plain" writing that occurs a lot in ya books, but it was really just overdone and i'm not sure that it really matched the feel of the story.
the plot was all over the place too and i honestly don't think i could give an accurate plot summary even with a gun to my head. it was like the author had 50 different ideas of what could happen in the story and somehow managed to include all of them. it was just plot twist after plot twist and half the time there was no real buildup to these twists. for example, act 3 of the story opened up with zafira being captured by the lion of the night and waking up in his house, but when act 2 ended it was just zafira being overwhelmed by emotions and losing hold on her compass-like abilities, leaving them stranded. there was literally no bridge between the two events at all. things like that happened all over the story and made it really hard to follow, since one moment you think you know what's going on and then suddenly it's entirely different.
the characters felt really flat and there wasn't much connection between them even though the author tried really hard to make the reader feel like there was. the premise of the story was entirely misleading because it makes it seem like it's just zafira and nasir going on this journey, but magically they become a group of five and they're all related to each other in some way. like benyamin and nasir are cousins (though not really) and altair and benyamin know each other and are like spy buddies???? but there was no real feelings of camaraderie between them whatsoever. even when benyamin died, these people who supposedly really love and care for him with lots of history between them just don't really give a shit. additionally, the romance between zafira and nasir just fell flat on it's face.
on top of all of this, the magic system in this world just wasn't explained properly and i don't understand the point of any of it. there's six sisters who were really powerful but then five of them died and magic was lost forever. this cursed the land i guess? because somehow this one section of the desert became snow (even though every other caliph was desert and stayed that way) and then like the caliph with the most fertile soil suddenly couldn't produce product anymore (yet they were still the leaders of produce in every other caliph). and then there's the arz, which is like this evil forest that's just slowly eating the land and will end society, but not once is it ever actually explained what the arz actually is. it's like dark creepy spooky forest that people enter and get lost in and then die, but also it can turn people evil too because it happened to zafira's dad and they had to kill him? but zafira is the only one immune to this because she's a magic compass? but it doesn't explain how she's immune to the other evil parts of it ever???? like what.
Ûļā§ đ¨đ¯đđĢđđĨđĨ đđĄđ¨đŽđ đĄđđŦ. overall this story was just a hot mess from start to finish. the journey itself took up most of the book but that was just these people bantering during the day, coming across some monsters and killing them, then having benyamin lore drop at night and having everyone be like 'wtf' and then somehow it's all good the next day. i just couldn't follow what was going on, the plot twists were absurd and so frequent that i couldn't even manage to be surprised by them anymore, and the romance aspects felt forced and awkward. HOWEVER, it's not the worst book i've ever read in my life so i don't feel that it deserves the lowest rating possible. i did enjoy act 1 when everything was still in the beginning stages, and then ending has left me wanting to know what happens next, so i'll read the second book just to get it over with. honestly though, i wouldn't recommend this to anyone at all. it's not worth your time.
1.5â
Ûļā§ đđĄđ đĢđđđđŠ. we hunt the flame follows the story of two individuals- zafira, a huntress pretending to be a man, approached by a witch who swears that she can restore magic to the world and save zafira's village, and nasir, the son of the sultan and an assassin who is sent on the same mission to restore magic and also to kill zafira. along with a few others, they do manage to bring magic back, but free the evil lion of the night in the process.
Ûļā§ đđĄđ đđĄđđĢđđđđđĢđŦ.
â đŗđđđĸđĢđ. zafira suffered from a serious case of y/n syndrome throughout the entire story anyway, since she's somehow connected to the lion of the night and also has powers hidden in her and then she starts hearing voices n shit, but when it came to nasir every single aspect of her strong rebellious personality just disappeared. she was a blushing mess and was just like "uwu nasir you're hurt let me climb in your lap and touch your abs uwuwuwuwuwu." like ma'am wtf. dare i say she had more chemistry with altair (even though it's clear that the author was trying to pair him up with kifah.)
â đ§đđŦđĸđĢ. nasir treated zafira like SHIT the whole time, he was so back and forth with liking her and then remembering that he's supposed to kill her but then not wanting to kill her because he likes her but then pushing her away because he's not supposed to like her.
Ûļā§ đđĄđ đŠđĨđ¨đ. to be quite honest, i'm not really sure what happened in this book at all. the writing was very beautiful and suuuuper descriptive, but it was almost too much. it felt like a textbook at times and was very hard to follow. i genuinely couldn't read more than like 40-50 pages at a time and i was constantly going back and re-reading things because i just couldn't process it the first time. i appreciate the writing style and it's a warm welcome compared to the "plain" writing that occurs a lot in ya books, but it was really just overdone and i'm not sure that it really matched the feel of the story.
the plot was all over the place too and i honestly don't think i could give an accurate plot summary even with a gun to my head. it was like the author had 50 different ideas of what could happen in the story and somehow managed to include all of them. it was just plot twist after plot twist and half the time there was no real buildup to these twists. for example, act 3 of the story opened up with zafira being captured by the lion of the night and waking up in his house, but when act 2 ended it was just zafira being overwhelmed by emotions and losing hold on her compass-like abilities, leaving them stranded. there was literally no bridge between the two events at all. things like that happened all over the story and made it really hard to follow, since one moment you think you know what's going on and then suddenly it's entirely different.
the characters felt really flat and there wasn't much connection between them even though the author tried really hard to make the reader feel like there was. the premise of the story was entirely misleading because it makes it seem like it's just zafira and nasir going on this journey, but magically they become a group of five and they're all related to each other in some way. like benyamin and nasir are cousins (though not really) and altair and benyamin know each other and are like spy buddies???? but there was no real feelings of camaraderie between them whatsoever. even when benyamin died, these people who supposedly really love and care for him with lots of history between them just don't really give a shit. additionally, the romance between zafira and nasir just fell flat on it's face.
on top of all of this, the magic system in this world just wasn't explained properly and i don't understand the point of any of it. there's six sisters who were really powerful but then five of them died and magic was lost forever. this cursed the land i guess? because somehow this one section of the desert became snow (even though every other caliph was desert and stayed that way) and then like the caliph with the most fertile soil suddenly couldn't produce product anymore (yet they were still the leaders of produce in every other caliph). and then there's the arz, which is like this evil forest that's just slowly eating the land and will end society, but not once is it ever actually explained what the arz actually is. it's like dark creepy spooky forest that people enter and get lost in and then die, but also it can turn people evil too because it happened to zafira's dad and they had to kill him? but zafira is the only one immune to this because she's a magic compass? but it doesn't explain how she's immune to the other evil parts of it ever???? like what.
Ûļā§ đ¨đ¯đđĢđđĨđĨ đđĄđ¨đŽđ đĄđđŦ. overall this story was just a hot mess from start to finish. the journey itself took up most of the book but that was just these people bantering during the day, coming across some monsters and killing them, then having benyamin lore drop at night and having everyone be like 'wtf' and then somehow it's all good the next day. i just couldn't follow what was going on, the plot twists were absurd and so frequent that i couldn't even manage to be surprised by them anymore, and the romance aspects felt forced and awkward. HOWEVER, it's not the worst book i've ever read in my life so i don't feel that it deserves the lowest rating possible. i did enjoy act 1 when everything was still in the beginning stages, and then ending has left me wanting to know what happens next, so i'll read the second book just to get it over with. honestly though, i wouldn't recommend this to anyone at all. it's not worth your time.
1.5â