The Wrath & The Dawn by Renée Ahdieh | It's Love, I know It!

Title: The Wrath and The Dawn

Author: Renée Ahdieh

Other books by Author: The Rose and The Dagger (book 2), Flame In The Mist, Smoke In The Sun (book 2 to Flame in The Mist)

Published: May 12th, 2015

Genre: Fantasy, YA, Retellings, Romance

AMAZON | GOODREADS



 Synopsis: One Life to One Dawn.

  In a land ruled by a murderous boy-king, each dawn brings heartache to a new family. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, is a monster. Each night he takes a new bride only to have a silk cord wrapped around her throat come morning. When sixteen-year-old Shahrzad's dearest friend falls victim to Khalid, Shahrzad vows vengeance and volunteers to be his next bride. Shahrzad is determined not only to stay alive, but to end the caliph's reign of terror once and for all.

  Night after night, Shahrzad beguiles Khalid, weaving stories that enchant, ensuring her survival, though she knows each dawn could be her last. But something she never expected begins to happen: Khalid is nothing like what she'd imagined him to be. This monster is a boy with a tormented heart. Incredibly, Shahrzad finds herself falling in love. How is this possible? It's an unforgivable betrayal.   
  Still, Shahrzad has come to understand all is not as it seems in this palace of marble and stone. She resolves to uncover whatever secrets lurk and, despite her love, be ready to take Khalid's life as retribution for the many lives he's stolen. Can their love survive this world of stories and secrets?

  First Impression-wise, I didn't see how the romance would go very well with the plot of the book. I also did not think I would adore it as much as I did, or that I would love the ''boy-king'' more than the main character...
 But that's exactly what happened.


First the Pros:

•  The romance was actually the highlight of the book for me, and I'm pretty sure the only reason I was as invested in it as I was...

•  I've discovered my weakness is for evil fictional characters that are hot with great character depths.

Khalid was like the Darkling from Shadow and Bone for me- my favorite character in the whole book (besides that sassy side character). He made the book for me.

• The plot didn't really stall at all, it kept me engrossed and honestly rather excited to find out more- even if it was terrifying as well for what might happen to my favorite character (because Shahrzad wants to kill him- that's the whole struggle in the book -_-).

• I did actually really appreciate the side characters a lot in this book, especially Shahrzad's handmaiden Despina. She made me laugh so many times!

• I love it when the romance progresses normally (as normally as possible) and isn't unhealthily creepy right off the bat. A lot of authors lately don't take the time to revise and fix all the Instant Love cliches.

Now the Cons (which are only a few):

• I wish we'd actually gotten to meet Shiva, other than her death driving Shazi we don't really know much about her. We don't truly care about Shazi's vendetta because we never actually knew Shiva.

• Some of Shazi's stories were so long and just kept going on forever, especially the one about Aladdin, I felt like skipping it (though I didn't).

• Tariq is.... nowhere near a favorite of mine, but I do have to admit that his side of the story was a bit interesting.

I honestly enjoyed this book more than Ahdieh's other series, Flame in the Mist. Where that one was lacking in the romance making sense, this book was perfect!


[My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐]



Have any of you read The Wrath and The Dawn?? What did you think?? Do you like other books my Renée Ahdieh?
If not, is it on your TBR?


Thanks for reading!!
~Books with Noel