Guest Book Review: The Wrath and The Dawn by Renée Ahdieh! (@rahdieh)

The Wrath and The Dawn (The Wrath & The Dawn #1)
Author: Renée Ahdieh
Publication Date: May 12, 2015
Published: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
Reviewer: Lametria

My Rating:

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?
Inspired by A Thousand and One Nights, The Wrath and the Dawn is a sumptuous and enthralling read from beginning to end.

Just when I thought I was growing out of the YA fantasy genre, I came across this story. I’m not a big fan of Aladdin and I’ve never read Arabian Nights, but I do know that this story is based off of those stories.

The story chronicles young Shahrzah, or Shazi, as she makes the ultimate sacrifice and marries the King Khalid for revenge. King Khalid is known for marrying a woman and then having her killed the following morning, his recent murdered wife, was Shazi’s best friend, hence her greed for revenge, that is until she survives the next morning, and the following morning and so on. What is it about Shazi that makes her different from the other wives? Why does the King have his wives killed? I would tell you, but I don’t want to give away any spoilers. 

This is one book that was very hard for me to put down. I was desperately eager to find out why Shazi is the one girl to survive King Khalid’s wrath and why he kills his wives to begin with. There are some parts that tend to be a bit boring, the parts with Tariq especially. I think he’s an okay character, but I dreaded reading this parts. I get he wants to be the hero and save Shazi and take down Khalid, and I know he’s important to the story, but I just don’t care for him.

My focus was on Shazi and Khalid and their obviously predictable growing love and trust for each other. I saw it coming, I mean I see it coming in every YA novel I read, so why would this one be any different? I just love that it was unique and interesting, because the guy is a murderer! And he murderer her best friend and yet she falls for him, who wouldn’t love that plot?! 4 stars!