The Wrath and The Dawn - Renee Ahdieh

"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?" 

Honestly this is a bit of a hot mess of a book. First I will say what enjoyed. The sassy dialogue was fun, witty and the insults where hysterically subtle. The secondary characters such and Rahim, Despina and Jalal where funny, easily believable and relatable. The hint of magic was interesting and left me wanting to know more about the light vs dark magic in this universe. The food descriptions left me salivating and packing my bags to Morocco and "Shazi's" occasional moments of bad-assry where enjoyable.

Now the things that weren't so good.

The main character is stupid. She sacrifices herself to a murderous king and believes she will be able to stave of the executioners axe by telling him a story each night and leaving it on a cliff hanger. But that is not what gets me. What gets me is her botched plans for revenge. She's all like I WILL KILL THE KING!!!!! I WILL AVENGE MY FRIEND'S DEATH AT THE HANDS OF THE MURDEROUS MONSTER. Then literally 2 days later she feels a pull on her heartstrings when he glances at her. Where is your commitment girl. Obviously didn't like your friend that much.

And the truth? I don't know why she's not dead. I don't know why he lets her live. Her charms are entirely hidden to me. I cannot comprehend the attraction she holds. Her stories bore me to tears.

Her attempts at sniffing out Khalid's weaknesses are poorly thought-out and completely disappear after she falls in insta-love with sunlight-scented emo boy. I mean, Khalid.

There's a scene where she directly confronts Khalid on why he kills his wives and he leaves because she has the subtlety of a hippo in a tutu. She then spends the whole day fretting she hurt his feeeeelings and apologizes. Apologizes. For wanting answers. For demanding an open relationship. For understanding why her best friend had to die.

Keep in mind Shahrzad falls for Khalid before she discovers the real reason behind the murders (in which he's totally blameless because God forbid he's a morally grey character). She is in love with someone who murdered her best friends and hundreds of other girls. At one point, she calls him her "beautiful monster".

There is of course a love triangle shoe-horned into this plot which was personally completely unnecessary and beside the point. I would have been far more interested to see Shazi's father start the rebellion.

Another thing that bothered me are the rape scenes that where mentioned in one maybe two lines. Their marriage consummation and the night after was rape, okay? Shahrzad didn't want it. She just went ahead with it to earn Khalid's trust.

Later, we discover Khalid had never entered any other bride's bedchamber except hers. Which begs the question: Why? If he loved her from the start, which he does, why would he violate her like that? Why would he perform on her one of the cruellest crimes you do to a person? Or is it supposed to be romantic and special because she's the exception? I understand that that was the norm in those days but for her to fall in love with him so quickly was crazy to start with, but further compounded by this insanity.
Then there's the plot itself. Or should I say lack of plot. For a story about murder and mind games, it is surprisingly slow. Nothing really happens until the climax, which abruptly cuts off just when the story ball starts rolling. They cheated me out of a decent climax. Most of the storyline is devoted to the romance, people traveling, and descriptions of clothes.(Which there is a lot of, I assure you.)

Age Rating 13+. Murder and god I don't know what to call it, "The consummation of a marriage where neither party is interested." Not explicit but still mentioned.