Saara El-Arifi

A Novel

Battle Drum

Cloudface

“You're right. I'm so sorry, Hassa. Do you forgive me?" 

“Forgiveness should never be requested. Only granted. Work for it.”

What a disappointing sequel. All the character development arcs from book 1 were undone and then the characters had to go through the same development again. Sylah, the main character, was unconscious through the majority of this book, and Anoor’s chapters were essentially just the same scenes happening over and over (my biggest issue with book 1 was pacing and it’s only gotten worse). The worldbuilding got way over complicated, and it felt like the author used the excuse of “they’re in a different country!” to just do whatever she wanted with the magic system. Random scenes of extreme violence carried little narrative weight and just felt like they were meant to shock the reader. New characters kept getting introduced and they all had the same cookie cutter personality. The dialogue felt like YA writing even though this book is supposed to be adult. I could see every “plot twist” coming from a mile away.

I’m just listing things I hated because I’m so annoyed that I wasted my time reading this. When I started this review I was going to give it 3 stars but the more I thought about it the lower the rating got. 

I still believe this series has potential. It just needs better editing. I cannot believe no one took a red pen to some of these scenes and said “cut this whole paragraph and nothing will change.” Okay I’m done. 

What a disappointing sequel. All the character development arcs from book 1 were undone and then the characters had to go through the same development again. Sylah, the main character, was unconscious through the majority of this book, and Anoor’s chapters were essentially just the same scenes happening over and over (my biggest issue with book 1 was pacing and it’s only gotten worse). The worldbuilding got way over complicated, and it felt like the author used the excuse of “they’re in a different country!” to just do whatever she wanted with the magic system. Random scenes of extreme violence carried little narrative weight and just felt like they were meant to shock the reader. New characters kept getting introduced and they all had the same cookie cutter personality. The dialogue felt like YA writing even though this book is supposed to be adult. I could see every “plot twist” coming from a mile away.

I’m just listing things I hated because I’m so annoyed that I wasted my time reading this. When I started this review I was going to give it 3 stars but the more I thought about it the lower the rating got. 

I still believe this series has potential. It just needs better editing. I cannot believe no one took a red pen to some of these scenes and said “cut this whole paragraph and nothing will change.” Okay I’m done. 

Battle Drum A Novel

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