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A review by commedesenfants
The Assassin's Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke
4.0
The Cover
This cover is really beautiful. I love the silhouettes of the ship and the cities and the whole cover has this Middle Eastern feeling to it, which fits the story perfectly. You'd expect a story like 1001 Nights or Aladdin inside. The font is also really gorgeous and looks a bit like Arabic script.
The Story
Ananna of the Tanarau is a pirate princess who is about to be married to the son of another pirate family. She's not happy with it because she doesn't want to be a sea captain's wife but be a sea captain herself. When she managed to escape her bethrothed, his scorned family sends an assassin after her, only instead of being killed Ananna managed to trigger a curse that affects both her and the assassin, Naji, and which forced them to work together in order to lift the curse.
The Protagonist
Ananna learned all her skills and life lessons from her parents, especially from her father. As a pirate lord's daughter she has to be tough and learned from early on how to defend herself. She's resourceful and smart. You'd think as a pirate she doesn't have any morals but she does, it's only that her morals are more stretchable and applied differently in different situations. This sounds weird, but I really liked that Ananna wasn't so high and mighty about honour and pride. Of course having both these things are good attributes but in some life and death situations, it is better to know when to reatreat instead of staying, keeping your pride and getting killed. As I mentioned Ananna has been trained how to fight from early on and she's good at it, but she also has a more vulnerablel side to her. When she cares about someone, she's willing to protect them and do everything for them.
The Heart Rate
Naji is an assassin and has this dark and strange allure. He's mysterious and hides many secrets. He's not perfect by any means, neither inside nor outside. He has scars on his face but they are much deeper than just seen on the surface. He's calculative but you can see that he's good at heart, despite being an assassin. I know, this sounds like excuses, but there is a reason he became an assassin and he usually doesn't go after young girls and was very reluctant to kill Ananna in the first place. Naji and Ananni slowly got to know each other on their journey to find a cure for the curse and I like how they got closer throught time, nothing was ever rushed and while some might think that the romance was lacking in this book, I like the slow development and anticipation.
The Good
- Middle East: This book takes place in a fictional country that reminded me heavily of Middle Eastern countries. This gave the book a certain atmosphere, like their journey through the desert or the bazaars in the city.
- Pirates: I like that the pirates are organized as a group, the Confederation, they have their own laws and everything. I always joke that I'm just going to quit everything and become either a princess or a pirate. Of course, I know that modern day pirate life (or pirate life in general) is not all that glamourous, but in books and movies it always sounds kinda awesome. Though Ananna did mention the smell of the sailors, I'm not sure I can deal with that. Sadly, there are no parrots in this book but maybe there'll be one in the next one.
- Diversity: As this book is clearly set in a Middle Eastern-like country, the characters are not Caucasian which is a nice change. They are also not stereotyped and not defined by their ethnicity.
The Bad
Something's missing: Do you ever get that feeling, when you only have a few dozen pages left in a book and you just think: "Wait, there are not enough pages left for all the things that should be happening!" I got that feeling with this book. I think the author intends this to be a duology but to me it really reads more like this was part one of a book. Don't get me wrong, the story was engaging and the worldbuilding was good (just enough details to flesh it out but not so much that it stops the flow of the story). I just feel like the story doesn't really have a climax so you're still expecting it by the end but then you realize the book is over. I just feel like the book should've been longer. Of course, with a sequel coming up not all the main issues in the book can be solved but I just expected something more dramatic to happen.
The Rating
★★★★☆
3.8 stars. This was a fast and engaging read. I liked the story and the protagonists and I'm looking forward to where the story will go in the next installment.
This cover is really beautiful. I love the silhouettes of the ship and the cities and the whole cover has this Middle Eastern feeling to it, which fits the story perfectly. You'd expect a story like 1001 Nights or Aladdin inside. The font is also really gorgeous and looks a bit like Arabic script.
The Story
Ananna of the Tanarau is a pirate princess who is about to be married to the son of another pirate family. She's not happy with it because she doesn't want to be a sea captain's wife but be a sea captain herself. When she managed to escape her bethrothed, his scorned family sends an assassin after her, only instead of being killed Ananna managed to trigger a curse that affects both her and the assassin, Naji, and which forced them to work together in order to lift the curse.
The Protagonist
Ananna learned all her skills and life lessons from her parents, especially from her father. As a pirate lord's daughter she has to be tough and learned from early on how to defend herself. She's resourceful and smart. You'd think as a pirate she doesn't have any morals but she does, it's only that her morals are more stretchable and applied differently in different situations. This sounds weird, but I really liked that Ananna wasn't so high and mighty about honour and pride. Of course having both these things are good attributes but in some life and death situations, it is better to know when to reatreat instead of staying, keeping your pride and getting killed. As I mentioned Ananna has been trained how to fight from early on and she's good at it, but she also has a more vulnerablel side to her. When she cares about someone, she's willing to protect them and do everything for them.
The Heart Rate
Naji is an assassin and has this dark and strange allure. He's mysterious and hides many secrets. He's not perfect by any means, neither inside nor outside. He has scars on his face but they are much deeper than just seen on the surface. He's calculative but you can see that he's good at heart, despite being an assassin. I know, this sounds like excuses, but there is a reason he became an assassin and he usually doesn't go after young girls and was very reluctant to kill Ananna in the first place. Naji and Ananni slowly got to know each other on their journey to find a cure for the curse and I like how they got closer throught time, nothing was ever rushed and while some might think that the romance was lacking in this book, I like the slow development and anticipation.
The Good
- Middle East: This book takes place in a fictional country that reminded me heavily of Middle Eastern countries. This gave the book a certain atmosphere, like their journey through the desert or the bazaars in the city.
- Pirates: I like that the pirates are organized as a group, the Confederation, they have their own laws and everything. I always joke that I'm just going to quit everything and become either a princess or a pirate. Of course, I know that modern day pirate life (or pirate life in general) is not all that glamourous, but in books and movies it always sounds kinda awesome. Though Ananna did mention the smell of the sailors, I'm not sure I can deal with that. Sadly, there are no parrots in this book but maybe there'll be one in the next one.
- Diversity: As this book is clearly set in a Middle Eastern-like country, the characters are not Caucasian which is a nice change. They are also not stereotyped and not defined by their ethnicity.
The Bad
Something's missing: Do you ever get that feeling, when you only have a few dozen pages left in a book and you just think: "Wait, there are not enough pages left for all the things that should be happening!" I got that feeling with this book. I think the author intends this to be a duology but to me it really reads more like this was part one of a book. Don't get me wrong, the story was engaging and the worldbuilding was good (just enough details to flesh it out but not so much that it stops the flow of the story). I just feel like the story doesn't really have a climax so you're still expecting it by the end but then you realize the book is over. I just feel like the book should've been longer. Of course, with a sequel coming up not all the main issues in the book can be solved but I just expected something more dramatic to happen.
The Rating
★★★★☆
3.8 stars. This was a fast and engaging read. I liked the story and the protagonists and I'm looking forward to where the story will go in the next installment.