The Wrath and the Dawn

So uhmmm that happened?

There was some magic? But not enough for it to play well with the story unless it was convenient for moving the plot forward?

There were teenagers running everything? And other teenagers who sneered at the idea of a “boy king” even though the king was totally an adult.

There were motivations for doing things, but none of them made actual sense? Like, I understood the revenge line from the start. Sure! We'll say that a 16 year old girl can kill the king by marrying him even though she knows he kills all of his wives! Why not! (That's not a spoiler, that's like the whole point of the book.) But then Sharizhad and Khalid just totally fell in tortured love, and there was no reason really for it because all she did was tell him one story while he huffed around being moody? And there was kind of a love triangle but I couldn't tell what Tariq's deal was because all he ever did was go around being rude and making decisions for Shazi and carrying a falcon around?

And then there's convenient magic explaining why Khalid had to kill a whole bunch of wives, and it's not his fault, etc. etc. except that the reason for the curse also made no sense? Like, you don't make your son-in-law-king murder a bunch of people because your daughter killed herself after a miscarriage. That doesn't make any logical human sense. It's played like it's supposed to be a form of revenge? Which also doesn't make any sense.

I liked Despina. There, that's one good thing.
(Edit, nope I didn't even like her that much either. She wasn't well-written. The dialogue wasn't well written. I wanted to like Despina, which is not the same as actually liking her.)

I listened to the audiobook, and the narrator was okay, but a bit melodramatic.