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A review by gee_reads_books
We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal
Did not finish book.
This was a DNF for me, at page 153 or so. I've been through over a hundred pages already--that's more than a 20% of the book. And yet, NOTHING of interest has happened--beyond loads of moping around the corners. Zafira is moping around the corners that her best friend is getting married. Nasir, whose chapters are... Way too short..., is moping around the corners telling himself how "Hey, I'm the Prince of Death. Did you know that I am the Prince of Death? I'm a puppet in my father's hands, and I kill people. Because I AM THE PRINCE OF DEATH! :D" All I know about him is that he. Is. The Prince. Of. Death. This is somehow similar to Throne of Glass, where we're told over a hundred times that hey, don't you forget, Celaena is the Assassin of Adarlan! That much was clear after the first five times you said it. I didn't need A HUNDRED MORE REMINDERS.
I had decided to give it a go because, even if getting to page 57 was already excruciating and took long enough, I had some hopes for Nasir and Altair. As a pairing, I mean. You simply don't go around noticing an enemy-to-friend's twinkling in the eye, or beautiful smile. You simply don't do innuendos every single time you see him. Your heart simply doesn't race when you notice he's stopped using your royal title in favour of calling you by your name. You. Simply. DON'T. All of the above screams "ENEMIES TO LOVERS!" I had a feeling that it wasn't going to happen, but I was hopeful all the same. Until the friggin' quest hadn't started after 153 pages (which is more than long enough when the book is all about said quest, if you ask me), and I decided to find out whether the rest of the book deserved my time. And deserving my time meant Nasir and Altair's relationship slowly evolving into something else, because honestly, every single character in this book had the personality and charisma of a mushroom.
Spoiler alert: it did not deserve my time.
So here I am, not finishing it. I really wanted to like this. I did. The premise sounded good. The Arabian ambientation seemed hella cool to me. The writing is beautiful, indeed. But I feel like nothing has happened in the 153 pages I've been through. I don't even remember much of what happened, and I read it yesterday. Besides, there are way too many Arab words that are thrown around unexplained and untranslated, which makes it difficult to read through most of the paragraphs. As much as I like foreignt languages, I do not like having them shoved down my throat without so much as a translation, which is what happened here. And when I found out that the author had published a list of every Arab word with its translation somewhere on WHTF's official website, I had already figured out half of them out.
Another thing that really kept me from enjoying the book was the characters' complete lack of small talk skills. Literally every single time someone talked to someone else, they did so through memorable quotes and intrincate phrasing and metaphor and poetry and all the cool stuff. Thing is, this stuff is cool when it's done in key scenes, with key dialogues, when it makes sense. It isn't cool when it happens every single time a character opens their mouth. Not every dialogue in your story needs to be a stunning piece of art, because if someone is asking where their sister's going in the middle of the night, it's not normal to have them giving said sister a lesson in morality about family and staying true to your loved ones and blah blah blah. It might appeal to some, but for me, it was tiring and pointless most of the time.
As I said, I'm really sad that I didn't like We Hunt the Flame. And I'm glad the author's getting all the praise and recognition she's getting-because this is, I'm pretty sure, a lot of people's kind of book. Part of the reason why I'm not giving it any rating is because I know it's not a bad book per se. As far as I've read, there are no toxic relationships (except for Zafira's possessivity towards Yasmine), no characters I particularly hate (how could I? They're all too plain and boring for hatred), no major plot holes, no offensive deaths. (Save for the death of all hopes of Naltair being a thing) The world's been lavishly created, and Faizal's beautiful descriptions reflect all the effort she's put into building Arawiya and its five caliphates. I really liked the Six Sisters of Old thing, for they sounded pretty badass. There was also this women empowerment vibe, with all the Zafira being the most skilled hunter in her caliphate and being the one to stop starvation from running amok. The Lion of the Night promised to show up at some point and be a cool character. Deen was a good guy. Some of the quotes, even if there were way too many just everywhere, were really powerhouse.
And I'm so sorry that it wasn't enough for me to stay.
I had decided to give it a go because, even if getting to page 57 was already excruciating and took long enough, I had some hopes for Nasir and Altair. As a pairing, I mean. You simply don't go around noticing an enemy-to-friend's twinkling in the eye, or beautiful smile. You simply don't do innuendos every single time you see him. Your heart simply doesn't race when you notice he's stopped using your royal title in favour of calling you by your name. You. Simply. DON'T. All of the above screams "ENEMIES TO LOVERS!" I had a feeling that it wasn't going to happen, but I was hopeful all the same. Until the friggin' quest hadn't started after 153 pages (which is more than long enough when the book is all about said quest, if you ask me), and I decided to find out whether the rest of the book deserved my time. And deserving my time meant Nasir and Altair's relationship slowly evolving into something else, because honestly, every single character in this book had the personality and charisma of a mushroom.
Spoiler alert: it did not deserve my time.
So here I am, not finishing it. I really wanted to like this. I did. The premise sounded good. The Arabian ambientation seemed hella cool to me. The writing is beautiful, indeed. But I feel like nothing has happened in the 153 pages I've been through. I don't even remember much of what happened, and I read it yesterday. Besides, there are way too many Arab words that are thrown around unexplained and untranslated, which makes it difficult to read through most of the paragraphs. As much as I like foreignt languages, I do not like having them shoved down my throat without so much as a translation, which is what happened here. And when I found out that the author had published a list of every Arab word with its translation somewhere on WHTF's official website, I had already figured out half of them out.
Another thing that really kept me from enjoying the book was the characters' complete lack of small talk skills. Literally every single time someone talked to someone else, they did so through memorable quotes and intrincate phrasing and metaphor and poetry and all the cool stuff. Thing is, this stuff is cool when it's done in key scenes, with key dialogues, when it makes sense. It isn't cool when it happens every single time a character opens their mouth. Not every dialogue in your story needs to be a stunning piece of art, because if someone is asking where their sister's going in the middle of the night, it's not normal to have them giving said sister a lesson in morality about family and staying true to your loved ones and blah blah blah. It might appeal to some, but for me, it was tiring and pointless most of the time.
As I said, I'm really sad that I didn't like We Hunt the Flame. And I'm glad the author's getting all the praise and recognition she's getting-because this is, I'm pretty sure, a lot of people's kind of book. Part of the reason why I'm not giving it any rating is because I know it's not a bad book per se. As far as I've read, there are no toxic relationships (except for Zafira's possessivity towards Yasmine), no characters I particularly hate (how could I? They're all too plain and boring for hatred), no major plot holes, no offensive deaths. (Save for the death of all hopes of Naltair being a thing) The world's been lavishly created, and Faizal's beautiful descriptions reflect all the effort she's put into building Arawiya and its five caliphates. I really liked the Six Sisters of Old thing, for they sounded pretty badass. There was also this women empowerment vibe, with all the Zafira being the most skilled hunter in her caliphate and being the one to stop starvation from running amok. The Lion of the Night promised to show up at some point and be a cool character. Deen was a good guy. Some of the quotes, even if there were way too many just everywhere, were really powerhouse.
And I'm so sorry that it wasn't enough for me to stay.