The Wrath and The Dawn by Renée Ahdieh

My Rating: 4/5 stars

Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books

Published: May 12, 2015 

Recieved: Purchased off of Amazon

Purchase: Amazon

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? 

Musings: 

I knew well before I began to read this book that I would love it. However, I thought I would love it more then I actually do. This book was built up so much in my mind from around the time The Wrath and The Dawn was first published and I think that made me more critical while I was reading then I normally would be. 

One of the biggest things about this book was the insta-love, which is a trope that usually wouldn’t bother me, but it bothered me here. (Although the relationship grew much more organically later on and I fell in love with the Shaz’s and the Caliph’s relationship and had so many feels!) Pretty much all of my hiccups with this book were at the beginning of the story until those feelings away into how much I was enjoying the story. One of the other things about their relationship was that it is hate to love, but it I feel like the hate was there and gone with the wind, all I wanted was more explosions between the two, more drama, more flourish (again the buildup talking). The hate felt so temporary and it made me sad. 

I loved Shaz as a character. She is such a spitfire. Plus her aptitude with a bow made me really want to take archery lessons (I wish the archery had more to do with the actual storyline, but in another way I liked how it was included). As the story progressed I loved her interaction with the boy king. So many of their moments together towards the end of the book made my heart pound and my mouth smile from ear to ear. They both have this ease with one another that felt right and I was so happy to see how much they built off of one another and made each other stronger. I especially enjoyed how much our boy king encouraged Shaz to be simply who she was. His love for honesty and Shaz’s unapologetic nature made them both really compatible with one another. 

The Caliph himself is such a brooding, but surprisingly compassionate male lead. He is so dark and self-depreciating (and sadly for good reason.. I know I’d feel the same in his situation). He is force to be reckoned with and when he cares for you, you better believe he would move mountains for you. He is also a really quiet male lead, which was an interesting choice for his character that I actually really liked. 

The storytelling in this book was also a lovely touch. Especially the one that made the Caliph angry, (why I enjoyed these parts I don’t know, maybe it’s because they felt more real as characters to understand their triggers and getting them to express more emotion) I also really enjoyed the magical elements. Especially the magic carpet (I squealed when I read about the Magic carpet) I hope that it all plays a more important role in book two. 

The general consensus is this: 

• I loved this book
• I wish for a lot of things to be a bit different 
• I should have read this a long time ago
• Sometimes hype is murder 

Thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts down in the comments. Have you read this book? What did you think about it? What do you think about what happens when hype kills a book for you?

-Till next time!