Tariq is another facet of the emotionality of Renée Ahdieh’s story. But now I see, thanks to The Wrath & the Dawn, that Tariq was never meant for the action. I always thought it could have done without him, because it didn’t need his meddling to have events go the way they were already going. What I think the strength of this book is, is the way Shahrzad is now forced to defend her very personal love to the outside world, and the choices she has made to be with that man.

I got the feeling that with the ending of The Wrath & the Dawn, she might have written herself into a corner she wasn’t wholly comfortable with getting out of. Renée Ahdieh proved it, to me, by continuing the story in the manner she had before. But somehow you can never make them understand that. This usually is the publisher’s fault, because they want to entice readers who don’t really need that kind of incentive to continue on with a story they love. It didn’t fit in with what I knew about it, and it felt out of place at the end of the book. Not on violent storms, destruction and running horses. It showed all of us something about love we usually don’t consider: how to accept a love you have been told is wrong, but feels right despite everything that has happened, and how to forgive both yourself and the other for what you have done to get that love.īut the ending was something I accused the publishers of doing: ending on a cliffhanger of events to make sure we would read the second part, while the story had been based on words. How well Renée Ahdieh incorporated the story of 1001 nights into something she wanted to say about that tale.There was something truly beautiful within those sentences, and it tied deeply into her source material.

I was a huge fan of The Wrath & the Dawn because of how beautifully the love between Khalid and Shahrzad was written. Would I have read it in and of itself and still enjoyed it more than I could pick out its flaws, I am not entirely sure. I enjoyed reading the book as a conclusion of the story.

The Rose & the Dagger by Renée Ahdieh