The Wrath & the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

The quick cut: A 16 year old girl volunteers to be the latest one to marry the king, who marries a new girl every night and kills her by dawn. Chaos ensues when there is more going on than meets the eye.

A real review:

If a man kills his wife and marries a new one every day, he's a bad guy right? For this 1001 Arabian Nights retelling, Shahrzhad agrees to be Khalid's latest wife in a plot to end his evil reign.

Every night, 18 year old King Khalid takes a new wife and kills her by dawn. It's an endless cycle of death that leaves everyone in fear. So when Shahrzhad volunteers to be the next, everyone is left shocked. She has an agenda though and her plan is to avenge those who have died. Can she do it? Or will she end up like the others before her?

There have been a lot of retellings done, but this is the first I've seen for Arabian Nights. It's an intriguing story on its own, so I was excited to see someone else's twist on it. While I found the general story to be good, I did find myself having a few issues with it as I read along.

Shahrzhad is clearly trained for the role as the kings new wife. She goes into it wanting to avenge all the girls who married before him. However, she also clearly doesn't have a plan on how to do that, which seems strange. And like a bad idea.

Khalid is more complicated than meets the eye. With him though, it seems like he says nothing, then suddenly spills his guts, then disappears, and spills his guts again. It would've been more exciting for it to be a more gradual, slow process. Their chemistry also seems to work that way too. Nothing and then suddenly all over each other. It didn't strike me as very believable.

A unique take on 1001 Arabian Nights.

My rating: 3.25 out of 5