3.5 stars. It's a good beginning. I'm interested in seeing how the series continues. ( )

Alizeh’s story begins in a way that reminds you of a fairy tale and in some ways it is a fairy tale, but instead of a helpful fairy godmother, Alizeh is tormented by the Devil himself. Alizeh is a jinn, but not an ordinary jinn. She was raised to be a leader but her people are scattered and their number is smaller than the Clay, which are the humans. Alizeh is considered a snoda, a servant; she hides her face and her identity until an event occurs that causes her to be noticed by the royal family. Is she a spy? The King believes she is even worse than a spy, she is who the Diviners have prophesied about; will it be the end of the kingdom or the end of Alizeh? To reveal more would be to give away spoilers and key plot points, and this book is too good to spoil for other readers.

The writing of this novel is beautiful and lyrical. The world-building is vivid and stunning. There are times when the reader will want to cry and laugh. Every character in the story plays a vital role to the plot, which is very well planned out from the opening chapter to the cliff-hanger ending. This book is the first of a new fantasy series by Tahereh Mafi, and hopefully the next book won’t take too long to come out. ( )

It takes a while to get acquainted with the writing style but not bad at all. Insta-lovey. Kindness is not a weakness, and I love that it's shown as a strength here.

But, at times, the female MC felt subservient to a fault. Male mc was self-absorbed and whiny but entertaining. It was always so satisfying when Kamran realized he didn't know everything. There are also some nice plot twists here and there.

You’ve to eat your vegetables to get to the good stuff. But I’ll read book two.

3.5 ( )

Representation: Asian main characters
Trigger warnings: Death of parents, blood depiction, suicide attempt, hate crimes, racism, decapitation, near-death experience, knife violence, physical injury
Read this review for context. This review can also be found on The StoryGraph.
Score: Eight points out of ten.

I've been hyping this up for a while, and I was so excited to read it when I first borrowed it from one of the two libraries I go to, not knowing what to expect at first, considering I've never read from this author and this is the start of a trilogy. I was blown away, and now I can't wait to read the next book in the series called These Infinite Threads. Where do I even begin? By the way, this reminds me of a book I read a while back that underwhelmed me. That had a similar concept, but this was executed better, and in other words, this book succeeded where the other failed. Now that I said that, it starts with the main character Alizeh, whose last name I forgot, and she's a servant girl, but she's not even human; she's a jinn or a fire being, and the other critical person is called Kamran, and he is a prince, son of King Zaal and an heir. These two characters lived separately from each other at first, and I liked the part when the author inserted a chapter explaining how the world worked. Initially, the jinn ruled over the world until someone called Iblees ruined it, and the world was destroyed, killing most of the jinn. Centuries later, a new race called human beings emerged, and for some reason, they thought the jinn were evil products, so they set out to destroy them all, and an empire established peace between the two races since then. What set this book apart is the characters, since they had problems to overcome, and they did, experiencing development, which I liked since I don't see that much in books I read, so I'm glad I got one with that. Not long after, they finally met, which was one of the less compelling aspects, the romance was an afterthought, but still, it didn't matter much when I enjoyed all the other aspects. Not to mention that the ending was action-packed, and the slow burn was all worth it since all the tension was building to this moment, ending this on an epic cliffhanger and a high note. ( )

This was a truly delightful read from the opening page to the finish line. A vividly imagined world that is different from most of the fantasy I've read still allows room for a beautiful character-driven story. Alizeh is a character you feel a connection with right at the get-go. She's powerful while still vulnerable, bad ass while still fractured. Everything about her makes you cheer her on. The flip side of her story is Kamran, who is an ass from the start but an ass you really want to like. The woven POV flips between their two stories are seamless and create the perfect pacing I want in a fantasy novel.

Beautiful prose. Plenty of action, plenty of world-building, but the characters reign supreme in this first installment. But that cliff hanger at the end? That's not a cliff hanger, that's a shove straight out of an airplane with no parachute. Thank goodness there is a book two for me to dive into because that fall might have killed me!

Read it. ( )