Book Review: THE WRATH & THE DAWN by Renee Ahdieh

THE WRATH & THE DAWN is a re-imagining of the story of Scheherazade by debut novelist Renée Ahdieh. The eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan has become a monster in the eyes of his people ever since he started taking a new bride every night only to have her executed the following morning. When her best friend Shiva falls victim to the murderous Caliph, Shahrzad offers herself to him as his next bride, intending to avenge her friend. She beguiles the Caliph with her stories, leaving him hanging each night in order to delay her demise and buy her time to plot his. But things don’t go quite as planned. She is horrified to discover she’s becoming attached to her best friend’s killer. But the Caliph tries to stop Shahrzad from getting too close, and for good reason. There’s more to the Caliph and the goings on in the palace than she could have ever thought possible…

Last year, Literary Agent Extraordinaire Barbara Poelle ran some impromptu giveaways on Twitter. “The first five to retweet get a copy of X.” I happened to be around when she did three of these, so I ended up winning books and making her concerned that I was stalking her, or had some kind of @BPoelle Book Giveaway Detection Device. For the record, I don’t, just right place, right time. One of these giveaways was for an ARC (Advance Reader Copy) of her client Renée Ahdieh’s debut novel, THE WRATH & THE DAWN. The book arrived and took its place in my TBR pile–not too far down since it’s an ARC so I wanted to read it before it came out in the event I liked it and wanted to get people pre-ordering it.

That was a good plan. I loved this book. Think Marissa Meyer’s CINDER and Tahereh Mafi’s SHATTER ME, and you get a sense of the engaging storytelling combined with beautifully written prose that is THE WRATH & THE DAWN. And like both of those other books, I was drawn into the story, and looking forward to each opportunity I had to read another chapter… and another… and another. Renée paints each scene with attention to all the senses–color, taste, smell, texture. She describes the food, the clothes, and the environment in a way that adds layers to the narrative, not in the form of relentless lists or endless travelogs. The characters are well-crafted: the cold Caliph with a dark secret, Shahrzad’s no-nonsense handmaid, Despina, her childhood friend and love interest Tariq, and her would-be rescuers who also want to put an end to the Caliph’s reign of terror, but are oblivious to Shahrzad’s changing heart.

I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading, particularly if you like Marissa Meyer and/or Tahereh Mafi. It gets a whole-hearted five stars from me. The only drawback to the book is you have to wait until May before you can read it. If it makes you feel better, you can pre-order it from Amazon HERE or from Barnes & Noble HERE. The only profanity I recall was in the context of name-calling (questioning the legitimacy of someone’s birth, or calling someone a female dog). So I give it a PG-15.