Renée Ahdieh

In Ahdieh’s previous duology set in a fantasy version of the Islamic Golden Age, the story revolved around a brooding bad boy and a sassy, independent girl, each of whom really wants to hate the other, at least at first. It featured an exotic milieu skillfully evoked. And finally, there is also a mystery, a bit of magic, very likable characters, and a hot romance.

This new series has all those same elements except the time period, which is now in feudal Japan. It begins with 17-year old show more Lady Mariko Hattori riding in a convoy on her way to the imperial city of Inako to become the wife of the second son of Emperor Minamoto Masaru. She was angry that she “was being exchanged like property in order to curry favor”: in order, as her father said, to “be a tribute to your family. . . . As you were raised to be.”

Mariko knew it was foolish to want more. She was not a male; her value came from aesthetic qualities only: as the property of men with power, and as a "reward," not someone valued in her own right. She knew her place in life. And yet. When the convoy is attacked by bandits appearing to be from the notorious Black Clan, she is the only one who escapes. She disguises herself as a boy and vows to find the Black Clan, infiltrate their ranks, and get her revenge.

Instead, she discovers that not everything is black and white, and the Black Clan is not what she thought. Nor are the boys and men who comprise its ranks. In her new-found freedom disguised as a boy, she is treated as smart and capable, rather than as an object. But she also learns there is strength in being a woman. Thus Mariko is able to find out what it means to be brave, and even what it means to love.

Unfortunately, however, she just exchanges the pitfalls of her old life for the dangers of her new one.

Discussion: Ahdieh isn’t a world-builder like many fantasy writers. She seems to have more interest in depicting enchanting fairy-tale-like settings, replete with richly-colored fabrics, gorgeous gardens, and spectacular buildings. Her world-building may not be all that meticulous, but I enjoy immersing myself in the sensuous scenes she paints.

There is some background, however, about feudal Japan. Mariko, brought up in a family of samurai, often contemplates the "Way of the Warrior" (Bushidô), a rigid value system of discipline and honor that consisted of seven tenets: integrity, courage, benevolence, respect, honesty, honor, and loyalty. As the plot unfolds, Mariko has reason to consider all of them and what they can and should mean in her life.

With Ahdieh, one also gets plenty of “swoony” romantic episodes she writes for her protagonists, as in this passage:

“…his knee grazing her inner thigh. The instant it happened, [he] knew it was a mistake. The sharp intake of her breath. The darting eyes. His thundering heart.”

Sure, not all of it is realistic. But it’s a fantasy, and moreover, one interspersed with magic. I’m all in for the next book. show less

For more reviews, gifs, Cover Snark and more, visit A Reader of Fictions.

Gillian (Writer of Wrongs) loaned me her ARC of The Wrath and the Dawn during our vacation together. Though I wasn’t sure I was in the mood for anything particularly heavy and was having trouble sticking with anything, I picked it up since she’d been nice enough to carry it along with her. At first, I was unconvinced, but that lasted a grand total of about 25 pages. Normally I swap between books, but I read The show more Wrath and the Dawn in one long binge, with a break for sleep, and I regret not a single thing. I’m so thrilled to have finally found a fantasy in a diverse setting with vibrant characters, wonderful world building, and glorious shipping.

For the first couple of chapters, I wasn’t really sure what was happening in The Wrath and the Dawn. The first chapter especially stymied me. However, once Shahrzad’s marriage to Kalidh takes place, I almost literally could not put this book down. The story’s told, as a Sheherezade story must be, with a lot of stories within the story. They come not just from Shahrzad but from others as well, and every single story reflects on the plot and informs what is to come. The Wrath and the Dawn is woven from a tapestry of story; it’s magical and utterly realistic all at once.

Review: The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh
posted at Monday, April 13th, 2015 at 8:00 AM | Reviews, Young Adult
Review: The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh
Series: The Wrath and the Dawn #1
Published by Putnam Juvenile on May 12, 2015
Pages: 388
Genres: Fantasy, Historical, Retelling
Format: ARC
Source: Borrowed
five-stars
Amazon • The Book Depository • Goodreads

A sumptuous and epically told love story inspired by A Thousand and One Nights

Every dawn brings horror to a different family in a land ruled by a killer. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, takes a new bride each night only to have her executed at sunrise. So it is a suspicious surprise when sixteen-year-old Shahrzad volunteers to marry Khalid. But she does so with a clever plan to stay alive and exact revenge on the Caliph for the murder of her best friend and countless other girls. Shazi's wit and will, indeed, get her through to the dawn that no others have seen, but with a catch . . . she’s falling in love with the very boy who killed her dearest friend.

She discovers that the murderous boy-king is not all that he seems and neither are the deaths of so many girls. Shazi is determined to uncover the reason for the murders and to break the cycle once and for all.

Gillian (Writer of Wrongs) loaned me her ARC of The Wrath and the Dawn during our vacation together. Though I wasn’t sure I was in the mood for anything particularly heavy and was having trouble sticking with anything, I picked it up since she’d been nice enough to carry it along with her. At first, I was unconvinced, but that lasted a grand total of about 25 pages. Normally I swap between books, but I read The Wrath and the Dawn in one long binge, with a break for sleep, and I regret not a single thing. I’m so thrilled to have finally found a fantasy in a diverse setting with vibrant characters, wonderful world building, and glorious shipping.

For the first couple of chapters, I wasn’t really sure what was happening in The Wrath and the Dawn. The first chapter especially stymied me. However, once Shahrzad’s marriage to Kalidh takes place, I almost literally could not put this book down. The story’s told, as a Sheherezade story must be, with a lot of stories within the story. They come not just from Shahrzad but from others as well, and every single story reflects on the plot and informs what is to come. The Wrath and the Dawn is woven from a tapestry of story; it’s magical and utterly realistic all at once.

gif jasmine smile aladdin

The Wrath and the Dawn feels predominantly historical, though I’m greatly excited about the magic elements just coming to the fore at the end of the novel. Ahdieh balances the novel between historical and fantastic fairy tale in a very believable way. There’s something about Ahdieh’s descriptions that really bring everything to life for me. Every time she described food, for example, my stomach would start grumbling. Even the foods I generally avoid sounded so good, and, when I get home, I’d like to go in search of Middle Eastern food. The atmosphere is luscious, sumptuous, and with an air of danger.

The characters in The Wrath and the Dawn are phenomenal. Shahrzad, of course, will always be my number one love. As Howard Keel sang in the somewhat troubling classic “Bless Yore Beautiful Hide,” she’s “sassy as can be.” Basically, this girl lives balls to the wall. Though she’s in danger of being murdered by the Caliph at any time, she doesn’t coddle or cajole; she manipulates, challenges, and intrigues. There’s not a weak bone in her body; Shahrzad is made of fight. She’s strong of both mind and skilled of body, thanks to her training with a bow and arrow. This is how I like my historical heroines, whether or not it’s necessarily realistic.

Review: The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh
posted at Monday, April 13th, 2015 at 8:00 AM | Reviews, Young Adult
Review: The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh
Series: The Wrath and the Dawn #1
Published by Putnam Juvenile on May 12, 2015
Pages: 388
Genres: Fantasy, Historical, Retelling
Format: ARC
Source: Borrowed
five-stars
Amazon • The Book Depository • Goodreads

A sumptuous and epically told love story inspired by A Thousand and One Nights

Every dawn brings horror to a different family in a land ruled by a killer. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, takes a new bride each night only to have her executed at sunrise. So it is a suspicious surprise when sixteen-year-old Shahrzad volunteers to marry Khalid. But she does so with a clever plan to stay alive and exact revenge on the Caliph for the murder of her best friend and countless other girls. Shazi's wit and will, indeed, get her through to the dawn that no others have seen, but with a catch . . . she’s falling in love with the very boy who killed her dearest friend.

She discovers that the murderous boy-king is not all that he seems and neither are the deaths of so many girls. Shazi is determined to uncover the reason for the murders and to break the cycle once and for all.

Gillian (Writer of Wrongs) loaned me her ARC of The Wrath and the Dawn during our vacation together. Though I wasn’t sure I was in the mood for anything particularly heavy and was having trouble sticking with anything, I picked it up since she’d been nice enough to carry it along with her. At first, I was unconvinced, but that lasted a grand total of about 25 pages. Normally I swap between books, but I read The Wrath and the Dawn in one long binge, with a break for sleep, and I regret not a single thing. I’m so thrilled to have finally found a fantasy in a diverse setting with vibrant characters, wonderful world building, and glorious shipping.

For the first couple of chapters, I wasn’t really sure what was happening in The Wrath and the Dawn. The first chapter especially stymied me. However, once Shahrzad’s marriage to Kalidh takes place, I almost literally could not put this book down. The story’s told, as a Sheherezade story must be, with a lot of stories within the story. They come not just from Shahrzad but from others as well, and every single story reflects on the plot and informs what is to come. The Wrath and the Dawn is woven from a tapestry of story; it’s magical and utterly realistic all at once.

gif jasmine smile aladdin

The Wrath and the Dawn feels predominantly historical, though I’m greatly excited about the magic elements just coming to the fore at the end of the novel. Ahdieh balances the novel between historical and fantastic fairy tale in a very believable way. There’s something about Ahdieh’s descriptions that really bring everything to life for me. Every time she described food, for example, my stomach would start grumbling. Even the foods I generally avoid sounded so good, and, when I get home, I’d like to go in search of Middle Eastern food. The atmosphere is luscious, sumptuous, and with an air of danger.

The characters in The Wrath and the Dawn are phenomenal. Shahrzad, of course, will always be my number one love. As Howard Keel sang in the somewhat troubling classic “Bless Yore Beautiful Hide,” she’s “sassy as can be.” Basically, this girl lives balls to the wall. Though she’s in danger of being murdered by the Caliph at any time, she doesn’t coddle or cajole; she manipulates, challenges, and intrigues. There’s not a weak bone in her body; Shahrzad is made of fight. She’s strong of both mind and skilled of body, thanks to her training with a bow and arrow. This is how I like my historical heroines, whether or not it’s necessarily realistic.

gif hot jasmine aladdin

It’s not just Shahrzad, feisty and intelligent, who I love, however. Khalid’s a monster, one who wins your heart. Every time he bared some of his feelings to Shahrzad, my heart grew a size, I swear. The arcs in this book people, my god. There’s little I like more than stories about characters have committed irredeemable acts and feel they could never deserve love who nonetheless try and grow and love their hardest. It’s so heartbreaking, both for the girls he had killed and for him; he will never throw off the guilt of what he’s done, which is why it’s possible to in some measure forgive him for it. This is not a world without consequences.

Shahrzad marries Kalidh intending to murder him, to obtain vengeance for her best friend who he married and then murdered. That’s not an easy ship to make work, but holy hell I ship it so fucking hard. The reason this messy ship works is that Khalid and Shahrzad, even at the beginning when they hate one another, are always honest. They omit or slant the truth sometimes, but they do not lie. There’s a foundation there for real trust, the most important ingredient in love. Plus, they sass and snark and banter endlessly. There’s a similarity of wit and humor and intelligence that makes everything work so beautifully, except for, you know, all the plot things complicating this, like the fact that Shahrzad had sworn to kill him.

The rest of the supporting cast has my heart as well. Her hand maiden, Despina, brought over from Greece a slave, is also wonderfully sassy and irreverent. I friendship and ever so slightly ship these two really hard. Not only that, but they do have to struggle through some serious trust issues. The only thing I don’t like about her plot line is that View Spoiler » Then there’s Jalal, Kalidh’s cousin and a Captain in the armed forces. Once again, major sass. Pretty much everybody is clever and outspoken. Banter non-freaking-stop. That is so one hundred percent my dream. MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE.

The low point of the novel, if there is one, which hardly, is Tariq. His sections weren’t boring and didn’t really slow me down, but I do not love him. He’s Shahrzad’s childhood love, and he needs to learn how to hakuna matata. He’s still very realistically drawn, but I definitely hiss at him and his silver eyes from time to time. Not to mention Kalidh’s tiger eyes (orange gold) or Shahrzad’s blue-greenish eyes. Um okay. Eyes will always be my nemeses in YA fiction it seems.

I want nothing more than to stop writing this review and dive straight back into this world, but, unfortunately, I’ve got a long wait for The Rose and the Dagger. Forces are only just marshaling for what is sure to be an intense and painful (in the best way) series. show less

Well this book was just … something else. It’s not a particularly long book, but it took me a long time to read because it’s … a little bit painful. I came in with no expectations, so I wasn’t let down. But it may have been the most lackluster book I’ve read this year.

Book content warnings:
sexism
sexual harassment

It’s very hard to find an actual plot here, but let’s see. Mariko, daughter of a famous samurai, is off to the imperial palace to meet her betrothed of an arranged show more marriage. On the way, she’s attacked by hired outlaws called the Black Clan and ends up being the only survivor.

So … supposedly then she gets filled with some bloody revenge and plans on infiltrating the Black Clan to kill everyone there, even though she’s a royal woman with fighting training, and no idea how things outside her own sheltered bubble work except for what her twin brother, Kenshin, has told her. She counts on her amazing “wits” to get her through everything.

Unfortunately, as a reader, I saw very, Very, few evidence of such wits. Mariko kept telling me how smart she was at me without actually showing me any proof of it. The Black Clan was really just less intelligent than her (or the book simply overflowed with ridiculous coincidences).

When the Black Clan's cook gives her an egg to eat, Mariko's inner monologue goes something like this: “His kindness could be a tactic. A way to wear down her defenses. Extreme cruelty tempered by extreme consideration. Much like the egg. / It could be a trick. / But the egg--that simple egg--was so wonderful. So perfect. / How could anyone who would take such care to prepare a simple egg truly be bad?” And she’s supposed to be counting on her wits to survive here.

The book also REEKS of the “I’m not like other girls” trope which I detest and honestly thought we were done with in YA. Nope? Or I guess I WISH we were all done with. Trying to be better than other girls, fighting against other girls to be “special” (to what … to men? please.) … can this be one last blip and then we can move on to supporting other girls -- ESPECIALLY since this is YA?

Anyway, tangent.
I think you can gather I didn’t like this book. At all. I suffered through the entire thing, to be honest, and though I feel really bad writing this review, I’m going to do it. Though I love diverse books, and want more, more, MORE of them, I don’t want crappy books flooding the market because “diversity” is now the new “”trend”” in publishing (unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that’s how it’s considered by big-name publishers. I hate capitalism). Back to the book:

It basically drowned in epithets. Like (I’m SO sorry for saying this, I’m so sorry) the author learned some bad writing skills from fanfiction and didn’t unlearn them before diving into this book -- and the editor didn’t fix the writing. Just Use Character Names. “The boy”, “the man in dark clothing”, “the samurai” for like 5 pages gets old REALLY fast. It doesn’t create an effective mood, and it’s not great writing.

Speaking of characters, I think one of the worst flaws the book has is basically that all character personalities are straight-up told to me as a reader and not explored as the book goes on through the story and through character actions and dialogue.

The same goes with character motivations. We’re told what Mariko, for example, wants to do about a hundred times but never actually see her making strides to accomplish it. Simply being told over and over and over that "she needed to know why the Black Clan had taken her to their camp. Who they were exactly. But most of all, she needed to discover why they’d been sent to kill her. / And by whom.” ← Over, and over, and over, and over, I’m fed lines like this through Mariko’s inner monologue, without any actions to prove she’s actually doing anything about them. Later her goal list gets a little longer to include more things like “can’t trust [love interest] but he’s just so interesting…]” and “I need to take revenge on them all! But how??” But it’s the same thing. She--and the novel--does nothing about these goals. This basic need of a novel: what the protagonist wants/needs to accomplish. Having the plot conveniently solve things without anything done by the character isn’t good writing ...

Similarly, Renée Ahdieh forces the main characters together as a couple when there’s no evidence of chemistry or romance on-page. She simply tells us things are happening -- just as she did with character traits and wants. She also tried so hard to create some “forbidden romance”, but she has to force it, reminding me page after page that “I hate him, he’s part of the Black Clan, I hate him and everything he stands for” ALL the time. In every scene they’re in together these words are repeated in internal monologue. Again, going along with the fact that nothing is done or solved in-scene and everything is done internally. The writing is actually pretty beautiful in parts! It’s just that it’s also incredibly weak when it comes to being functional character and plot-wise.

But worst of all, and what I can’t ever forgive, is that The Flame and the Mist is a Mulan remake. I didn’t know that going in, but I probably wouldn’t have even started it had I known. A Mulan remake … set in Japan? With all the characters being Japanese people? I’m not East Asian so I can’t really say how insensitive this is, but I’ve heard from others how awful even face-claiming Japanese/other East Asian actors online to play Mulan roles, etc., so to rewrite the entire story (even in a separate universe) set in Japan instead of China seems … really wrong. But again, that’s for someone else to elaborate on.

Adding to that fact, too, is that the book seems to base all of its information on the Disney movie! Complete with taking some of the same iconic lines, switching them around with synonyms so Renée can’t be called out for plagiarizing. It’s … mind-boggling how bizarre this is:

“‘Be as swift as the wind. As silent as the forest. As fierce as the fire. As unshakable as the mountain.”’ [...]

In fact, they really do sing about women at one point as well, about what they like in women (hmm, sound familiar?), and it comes to Mariko’s turn, who doesn’t know what to say, and who thinks, “The most fascinating thing about any woman should be her mind, should it not?” And then, of course, right after this song … they come to a massacre.

All Mariko needed was a dragon companion and some (more) singing to top it off and we’d have a Disney book, right? Instead, we have some sexual harassment when she was “discovered” to be a girl. The love interest basically just put his hand on her chest and waited for her to make the next move. Soooo romantic, right?

I Know I’m being really harsh, but I did find it nearly unreadable.
There was also the case of the love interest having some kind of powers that sapped his energy--and which magic system that was never used again. At the very end there was a rather lousy explanation of his powers, but why have it in the first place? Because there needed to be that first catalyst for his introduction? Why have a magic system that’s never used and that has no rules?

So yeah, definitely the worst book I’ve read so far this year. I’m really disappointed, even though I had absolutely no expectations coming in. I had Renée Ahdieh’s other book on my to-read list, but I don’t think I’ll get to it. Not after this. It’s just a big mess of lousy writing and lousy world-building. show less

Completely engrossing. I read it in one sitting - staying up 'til 3:30 a.m. to finish.

This transfixing retelling of One Thousand and One Nights features Shahrazad , a young woman bent on avenging the seemingly senseless death of her best friend at the hands of Khalid, a ruler haunted and hardened by the deaths of the young women he marries and then executes the following dawn. When Shahrazad volunteers to be his next bride, the anger in her eyes and her gifts as a storyteller intrigue show more Khalid enough to let her live night after night. But the executions were conducted to fulfill the demands of a curse Khalid has kept secret from all but those closest to him; and soon the curse begins to take a toll on both Khalid and the kingdom.

Shahrazad and Khalid are engaging and complex characters. Both are angry and passionate and confused by their feelings for the other, feelings that come at great cost to themselves and those they care for. Loving and trusting each other will mean that each of them must confront and overcome very deep anger and emotional scars. Loyalty, duty, love, and forgiveness are explored; the ways they complement each other and the ways they challenge each other.

Magic, mystery, and political intrigue infuse the classic tale with new life while maintaining its long-lasting romanticism and appeal. Swift pacing and palpable tension between characters propel readers through the novel, anxious to find out what happens. The first in a two-part series, The Wrath & the Dawn is compulsively readable. show less