The Wrath and the Dawn: Review

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.




I had some extreme expectations for this book. If you follow me on twitter or have seen some of my past posts, you know this was my most anticipated debut novel of the year-maybe even my most anticipated novel of 2015. So when I say I was excited for this book, it is a huge understatement. Probably a more accurate description was that I was salivating to read it.

But the real question of the day: Did it meet my high, high expectations? I can gladly say...it did! Other than a slight problem(I'll get to that later), this book was as awesome as I imagined it to be.

I first want to address my feelings about my favorite part of this book. The romance. If I learned one thing about the author from reading this book, it's that she can write a swoony romance. Though this book does feature a love triangle-"gasp"-it didn't disappoint me. Plus, you can clearly see who she is going to end up with. I just really wish Tariq wasn't so annoying. Khalid and Shahrzad had such great chemistry throughout the book, and not only that, the romance was based off mutual feelings for each other and nobody was trying to force the other to do something they didn't want to do. Ahdieh was so good at excellently building up the romance and the tension, and that is why I enjoyed it so much. In the beginning, the two start off hating each other; it makes perfect sense, since Khalid killed Shahrzad's best friend, and Khalid is frigid towards all of his brides. At one point in the middle, I was growing hesitant about the romance, because it seemed they both were falling in love a bit too soon. However, I needn't have worried! That thankfully did not happen.

The one thing I found leaving something to be desired was the plot. Do not get me wrong. I expect alot of people will not have any problems with the plot. I feel like this was mostly a personal struggle I had with the book. This may be because the book focused on the romance during long lengths of the book, when I was wishing it might be building in plots and action. Sometimes I found it hard to pick it up again, because the plot was not as engaging as I hoped. Actually, I'm particularly excited about the second book because of this fact. This book felt kind of like an introduction to the world and characters, and I have high hopes the second book will explore the world further and more action will start to appear. Still, at the end of it, the plot was overall good; because of my high expectations, though, again, it left something to be desired.

Once I look back on reading The Wrath and the Dawn, I realize there was quite a small cast of characters. This, I felt, was to Ahdieh's advantage. This made the characters grow on me and understand their faults and dreams and hopes and feelings. This was another reason why I enjoyed the romance. I felt like I knew Khalid and Shrazad so well by the end of the book. The side characters rounded out the cast members really well, though I won't be addressing my feelings about them each. I'll just mention that reading about them was highly entertaining.

Overall, Renee Ahdieh writes a beautiful and vivid debut book. The romance was as swoonworthy as it gets. The cast of characters grew on me and drew me to love them with their faults. Though the plot felt dragging at some points of the book, I still immensely enjoyed The Wrath and the Dawn!