A review by eesh25
The Rose & the Dagger by Renée Ahdieh

5.0

This sequel was very much-anticipated, at least by me. Like, I was dying. Just like I’m dying for The Beauty of Darkness.

Along with “dying”, I was also quite worried because this was the concluding novel and I wanted it to be amazing. Thankfully, my worrying was for no reason because I loved this book!

In the end of the first book, Jalal sends Shahrzad off with Tariq, telling him to never bring her back (not cool, dude) and a part of me was like “If this turns into a love-triangle, I will be borrowing that silk rope and stringing up all these character!” So yeah, I was violently against a love-triangle. And there wasn’t one! I was so happy!

Not only that, there wasn’t nearly as much angst as one would expect, the writing was great like it was in the first book and I loved all the characters.

There were characters that I wasn’t fond of in the beginning but they improved, some that messed up later but I’m okay with them now. Mostly I just adored Khalid and Shazi. They’re both amazing and I was rooting for Shazi so bad.

The romance between them was heart-warming and perfect.

The story was great. There were many new elements introduced and it went in a totally different direction than I was expecting. And the last, about, 75 pages were pure gold. I just… So much love I feel, taking like Yoda I am.

One could complain that there were moments that were slightly underwhelming but not much. And when you think about it, they were exactly right.

Overall, I love love LOVE this book and the series. And I want more. I want to know more about things with Khalid and Jalal and with many other character and pairings that I can’t mention because of spoilers.

I need a little more from this series and a lot more from this author because she’s brilliant.