A review by bookaquarius
A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal

adventurous dark funny medium-paced

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

2.5

I read A Tempest of Tea and to be honest, it wasn’t a great read for me. The plot was fine—a group of people team up to complete a mission, not everyone is who they say they are, and everyone’s a comedian. I think the world building could have been stronger and none of the characters was as interesting as their internal monologues seem to tell us they were. At times it seemed like every character had an assigned personality trait and that was all they were. I wish they were more well rounded because with everyone sticking to their Thing, they fell kind of flat at times. 

The last quarter of the book was the most interesting by far! There were reveals and new questions that far outweighed all of the drawn out set up at the beginning. The set up leading to the heist, the heist itself, and the immediate fallout all pale in comparison to the amount of intrigue and plot development shoved into that final bit. I wish the heist had been over with way earlier so we could have gotten more of the intrigue introduced at the end. The final quarter was the section where characters finally started getting a bit more interesting and the true plot started clicking. But something about this still seems imbalanced, because it shouldn’t have taken so long to get there. 

And one part of the story was so distracting… Everyone’s breath kept catching every time they made eye contact. Or their skin flushed or they got flustered or their stomach fluttered. Like some characters barely made it through a conversation without thinking to themselves how attractive the other person was. Aren’t you going to jail soon?? Isn’t your home in a pile of ashes right now?? Stand up! Everyone was too ridiculously distracted by crushes to be in the middle of a government take-down operation. There are bigger things to worry about and y’all are courting!!