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mzeinthemirrorr 's review for:

The Wrath & the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh
3.0

more like a 3.5!

i feel like there were equal parts i liked and disliked with this -- overall it was an interesting premise with some promising elements (that i desperately hope will be explored further in book 2) with other elements that were underwhelming/that i disliked.

things i did like:
- the overall concept (i love retellings, especially of stories that are less frequently retold -- please give me more retellings like this rather than 19439 batb retellings)
- the magic system (i hope it is explained more in the sequel because this is genuinely the thing i am most interested in)

things that underwhelmed me:
- the romance (i am not a romance girl to begin with but there was no build-up for the romance here imo, it was literally a jump scare even though i knew it would happen -- it grew on me as the book went on, but still the origins were... not there)
- (i also hated how
Spoiler shazi seemingly completely forgot about what khalid did to shiva? even if he was cursed, still?????
)
- the beginning was a bit slow/confusing(?) with the multi-povs (though this got better as the book went on and i learned the characters better)

overall, an interesting retelling with some intriguing elements and some personal issues that i hope will be remedied! the last 50 or so pages were the most engaged i felt in the book and seemed to set up the sequel well, so i really hope i will enjoy that more!