A review by sarah_cameron
The Rose & the Dagger by Renée Ahdieh

adventurous emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

I really enjoyed this book - it was a very solid follow up to the first and I’ll go through all the highlights, but I did really struggle with the pacing on this one. It was a bit slower and inconsistent without clear highs and lows. I think it would have really benefited from a clearer structure, and this would have made the height of the story more impactful.

This resulted in the curse and the ‘battle’/clash parts of the story feeling a little underwhelming given how much they’d been built up. I also wish the magic element was given more time to fully develop - I felt we’d just touched on its true potential when the story ended. There was a lot left unanswered about all of this.

In saying that, it was still a fantastic read. As before, Ahdieh’s writing is so lyrical and beautiful. Her imagery is great and her lines are very poetic.

I also enjoyed that we delved much more into people’s motivations and backgrounds beyond our FMC (don’t worry, this is still very much Shahrzad’s story and we get plenty of her, which I love as she’s undoubtedly my favourite character). This helps to flesh out so much of the story, and is such an asset. This is especially true for Khalid and Irsa.

Finally, I loved the tie-in at the end back to the original story with the nod to One Thousand and One Nights. It was not forced in, and was a great way for the book to end.

On the whole this was very much worth a read, especially if you prefer character-driven books, and ended the story in a really nice way.