Book Review: The Rose and the Dagger

The Rose and the Dagger
Renee Ahdieh
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2016
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Romance
Source: Purchased
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

What It's All About

Shahrzad has been torn apart from Khalid, but is reunited with her family and trying to find a way that she can make her way back to her true love.  The problem is that she has found herself in the company of Khalid's enemies and must make them believe that she is with them and not Khalid.  In secret, Shahrzad begins testing new found powers, hoping to find a way to use them to help end the war and the curse that keeps her from her caliph. But finding her way back to him, may mean abandoning her family.

My Thoughts

I was very much looking forward to reading this book and I enjoyed it for the most part, but it wasn't what The Wrath and the Dawn was.  We started hearing from Shahrzad's sister, but I wasn't really excited about that.  She ended up being more annoying.  Also, Shahrzad lost her zest and her bite, becoming lost a bit in all the many things that were happening.

There was a lot of mysticism that came into play in this book, but I never felt like it really played out.  Shahrzad goes off in search of help to break the curse and begins training to help control her powers, which seems like a big and important thing.  It seems as if this should be part of the plot, leading us to her being able to command her powers, but she doesn't seem to really use them.  It all gets pushed to the back burner and I'm wondering how necessary it was at all because it pulled me out of the story.

The ending was perfect, though!  The number of twists and turns!  All I have to say is that there were at least 3 times I had to stop reading and walk away because I was so worked up over what had happened.  Because things really go crazy at the end.

Overall, if you read The Wrath and the Dawn, you need to read The Rose and the Dagger.  Just be prepared for some heavy doses of mysticism that was only hinted at in the first book.

If you want to check out my recent discussion re-reading TWATD, then click here.
If you want to check out my original review of TWATD, then click here.

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