The Rose and the Dagger

very cute

This one was not as good as the first one. Which I suppose I ought to have expected, but whatever. I found the characters, especially some of the side characters like Irha, Rahim, and Tariq to be quite flat, and the narrative was far more meandering than direct. It felt for most of this book as though Shazi was flailing around trying to come up with a plan and then only deciding on one and acting on it halfway though the book. The ending also seemed rushed and left me feeling flat.

** spoiler alert ** if i’m being absolutely honest, this book was a complete waste of time and wasn’t written well at all. it’s literally 390 words written about them running around in the desert doing absolutely nothing important and then BAM. It seems like the author tried to rush everything that was important and interesting in the last 10 pages lmao. In 1 page, just 1, Khalid dies and then BAM he’s back alive? Turns out Shazi her dad miraculously brought him back to life after throwing a knife into his heart mmhhh so interesting. Then next chapter it’s like a time skip of some sort??? And then bam. The end. the first book was so so good, the world building was amazing, it was all going great but this book was so slow? there was nothing special no spark it was really boring to read 2’5/10 3’5/10 this was not it :( sucks

** spoiler alert ** 3.5 🌟 It's been a while since I read a story with a “And they all lived happily ever after. The end.” as a conclusion. I feel pretty satisfied with the whole series, much for this book as a lot of things happened here. Renée Ahdieh truly has a way of hypnotizing you into her stories. Someone mentioned that there's so much potential to develop this whole series into something more and I very much agree. But nonetheless it's a series I enjoy and for now that's enough.

Sadly did not live up to its predecessor.

I wasn't convinced of it at first, but as I read it, I started to realize that it truly had lived up to my expectations of what The Wrath & The Dawn's sequel should be. I honestly was so heartbroken about that part about Irsa at the camp waiting for them to arrive. I also loved that ending. And the twists! Those were some goddamn twists right there! A very good, albeit very long, read.

2.75 I personally didn’t enjoy the plot of this one as much. A lot of the aspects that I enjoyed last book weren’t present due to the nature of the plot, hence the lower rating. Surprisingly some characters that irked me last book annoyed me less this time around, and ones that I expected to like, I found more annoying (*cough* sometimes shazi). Some characters definitely deserved more development and page time. The ending was good but I felt that it was cut off. What happened next? What were the ramifications? We never got to see how Rey reacted just because one “enemy” was dealt with. Were they made aware of the curse or do they all still vehemently hate their murderous boy king? I would have liked more explanation in general. While this book was a bit underwhelming, as a whole the characters saved this series for me and I don’t regret reading this duology.

Saints, I wish I could give half stars - because I don't think it's a 3 star but I also think it's a 4 star either. So I'm officially giving it 3,5 stars. I liked this one a bit more than the first book in the series, though I still was thrown off by the ever-changing POVs within a chapter. The plot was more enjoyable in this one and I really enjoyed all of the characters! It stayed exciting until the last chapter and I actually may have shed a couple of tears at some point.

I liked this book, but nowhere near as much as I loved the first one!

3.5 Stars but I am rounding up to 4 stars (mostly out of nostalgia for this first book) This review contains some spoilers. The Wrath & the Dawn was one of my favorite reads of 2015. I was obviously exasperated that I had to wait over six months for the sequel to come out though. Unfortunately, the time it took for the sequel to come out was an awkward length where it had been just long enough since reading the first book that the details had faded and my enthusiasm had worn down some but not long enough to where I felt it warranted rereading the first book before continuing with The Rose & the Dagger. It also did not help that during that time, the author published a couple of in-between novellas which admittedly is a huge pet-peeve of mine. Either fit something into the actual books or leave it out. Do not fluff out your series with unnecessary additions. (Obviously I did not read those novellas, and I partly wonder if that was why I felt like I was missing some details when I started reading the sequel which just frustrated me even more.) I definitely would have enjoyed The Rose & the Dagger more if I had been able to start it immediately after reading its predecessor. While The Wrath & the Dawn was far from perfect, I immensely enjoyed it. However, I never reached anywhere near that level of captivation with The Rose & the Dagger. Even though the story picks up soon after the end of the first book, I had trouble reengaging with it. The story only focuses on Shahrzad and Khalid part of the time, and for some reason their romance never rekindled the butterflies that it produced in the first book. Without the enchantment of romance and the thrill of adventure, there was nothing to gloss over the things that annoyed me in the first place. The story was even choppier than the first one. The plot was overreaching and messy. Several new characters were introduced but never fully fleshed out or explored so they just added noise and confusion. By this point, the story had almost nothing to do with One Thousand and One Nights. It started to feel more like a cheesy fantasy novel and less like a hidden gem that I thought the first one was. The love triangle went from triangle to... I do not even know what to call it... a messy love Etch-A-Sketch drawing that tangled in with the attempts to thicken the plot with double crossings and intrigues. Also, I was still annoyed with the spelling of Shahrzad's name. Obviously, I did not expect that to change. But the book left me feeling just snippy enough to point that out again. Once again, my review sounds more negative than it actually is. I did enjoy the book; I just did not love it. The Rose & the Dagger would not have been nearly so disappointing if I had not had such high expectations from The Wrath & the Dawn. But for me, the sequel lost everything that made the first book distinctive and delightful, so it was a letdown and very anticlimactic. (view spoiler)[For a minute, I thought the ending was going to go somewhere darker, but Ahdieh forced out a happy ending after all. Such was my level of disappointment at how anticlimactic it was that I half wondered if I would have preferred the darker ending for once. The story did not feel organic at all. (hide spoiler)] It was still a decent enough story, and I may read other books by this author, but my strongest reflection on The Rose & the Dagger was that it never quite lived up to my expectations. It started out so promising, but it completely lost its spark. One other random thing to mention: What was with the inside jacket picture? Both books have the peekaboo affect as if Shazi was looking through a screen. But when you open the jacket of The Rose & the Dagger, it reveals that picture behind the screen is her standing in the desert in a ridiculous poufy dress. It not only goes against anything remotely accurate for the the approximate time and place in which the story is set but also against everything that she is ever described as wearing in either book. This is just further proof that publishers think teenage girls will only buy books that have picture of what look like bad advertisements for gaudy prom dresses. Gag. RATING FACTORS: Ease of Reading: 4 Stars Writing Style: 4 Stars Characters: 3 Stars Plot Structure and Development: 3 Stars Level of Captivation: 3 Stars Originality: 4 Stars

4.5/5. holy emotional distress. a lot of tears were shed while reading this book. i’m gonna miss this series so much. khalid and shahrzad are perfect for each other<3

Took me forever to read but totally worth it in the end.

4.5/5 Such a great way to end the duology. Such a great book duo. I really enjoyed both books equally!

3.5 ☆ a bit slow and not as good as the first but i loved the alliances and new friendships in this one!

"I love you, Baba." "And never forget my heart is always in your hands, Haroun." Such a beautiful tale. The first half is a bit slow, but the end: truly magic. This author really does know how to turn a story into a fairytale. I'm sO HAPPY :) ALL MY SHIPS HAS SAILED (very rare)

this one is a let down for me considering how much i loved the first book and i expected great things going into it. the writing and the world are still beautiful and i love khalid and shazi but there were too many subplots that i didn't care about and i was bored a lot of the time reading it :(

HOLY SHIT! This book made me so nervous that i nearly pissed myself! The last 10 pages made me question your humanity, my dearest author. Thank god you proved me wrong at the end, for i was going to rip off my heart and sell it to you.*because obviously i wouldn't give it for free*

mom i love them

Much love

As much as I flew through the first book, I was almost afraid to read the sequel as I knew a little bit what direction it was going as well as I don’t have a great track record with sequel books in general.

I’m happy I read the continuation of the story and was anxious the whole time for the main characters. Not as strong for me as the first one, but interesting nonetheless

This was a riveting sequel to The Wrath and the Dawn. I was a little afraid the plot would be predictable, boring or slow but it was far from any of that. I was constantly on the edge of my seat and heartbroken more than a few times. It was quite literally an emotional rollercoaster of tragic separations and heart-melting reunions. Surprisingly, I grew to love all the smaller periphery characters and appreciated that Ahdieh was able to give each one a well, fleshed out storyline. Characters like Despina, Jalal, Irsa, Rahim, Tariq and Yasmine all get some form of closure along with Shazi and Khalid, of course. The only qualm I have with this book (hence the 4 stars instead of 5) is the ending. All's well that ends well, right? Well, maybe. I love that everything worked out in the end and (almost) everyone got their own version of a "happily ever after" as we all suspected they would. But ugh, the last chapter of the book (not the epilogue) really felt overdramatic and predictable. (view spoiler)[Like, was the whole "power of love" thing necessary? It was just so cheesy and cliche and the ending would have been 100% better without it in my opinion. Plus it was an easy way to redeem Shazi's corrupt, deceptive and power-hungry father without actually having to waste time or pages fleshing out any character development. It just seemed like a weak plot maneuver to me. Would it really have killed Ahdieh to leave the dad as a villain and credit Khalid's recovery to medicine, or idk, Irsa's potions or something? Now that would have been interesting. (hide spoiler)] Plus, the magic carpet wasn't showcased quite in the way I thought it would be. Maybe I was thinking it would have more of an entity like in the Disney version of Aladdin. But the "magic" aspect and the curse were both a lot less complicated than I thought they would be. It was a pretty straight forward solution and easily dealt with. You'd think that with so many dead girls sacrificed because of the curse, the means to reverse/end it would be much more dangerous or harrowing. Turns out, Khalid had a harder time dealing with his evil uncle than reversing the curse, which was a little weird to me, but whatever. In the end, is this book better than The Wrath and the Dawn? I don't know. There were things I loved and things that left me feeling a little confused or expectant. I do, however, think it was an engaging, fascinating and satisfying sequel to a unique and modern rendition of the Arabian Nights. If you loved The Wrath and the Dawn you won't be terribly disappointed.

Awal pembukaan buku 2 bikin bosen daripada di buku 1. Baru mulai seru di 2/3 sampai ke akhir kecuali yang ending nya dan epilog nya bikin rolled eyes, serasa terlalu klise dan jadi nya ingetin diriku buat baca Haroun and Sea of Stories ><. Setelah baca, khalid jadi salah satu bookboyfriend baru untuk di adopsi ><

i think i need to lie down

ALL THE FEELS. Review to come