Faizal clearly put effort into this book, yet I vehemently disliked many aspects of it. Hereunder is everything wrong with this book: THE SEXISM: I found this book to be incredibly sexist. I don't care what political affiliation a person has, or where they put themselves on the religious spectrum, or the feminism spectrum, or whatever spectrum you have out there. If you cannot abuse and put down females, you should also not be able to abuse and put down males. You say you have a strong female character, but can you ever really be strong if you are UNKIND? Here are some ridiculous examples: “Men are like fish,” Kifah said, the break in her voice giving away her unease. “Men,” Kifah said, snorting a laugh. Now let me just replace that with the word 'women', and let's see how it sounds: “Women are like fish,” Kifah said, the break in her voice giving away her unease. “Women,” Kifah said, snorting a laugh. You may have your opinions, but don't fight me on this - injustice, unkindness, and sexism can exist both from men and women and it is NEVER right, WHATEVER the norm of the times. Once upon a time, men thought it was okay to speak about women like this. Now as a woman, you think it's okay to do the same? Being a woman doesn't give you the license to degrade anyone - whether fellow woman (like me), or a man. What's ironic is that there is a line in the book that goes along the lines of - 'Two wrongs don't make a right.' THE PROSE: For the most part, I find Faizal's writing style too flowery and introspective. Her description makes things clumsy and bogged down in detail where there is no need - as many have commented, this book is far longer than it need be. However, when she gets it right however the results are breathtaking: Darkness surged in his veins. It exhaled wisps from his fingers and feathered his every glance. And when he thought too hard too fast, it bled up his arms in streams of black. At another time: He kept every emotion on a tight leash, hidden behind the ashes of his eyes. However, for the most part, the description and speech of the characters are too flowery and, frankly, archaic and fake-sounding. Everyone in the book talks in the same archaic way, for example, Kifah (the 'least' verbose and emotional character) said: “We’re a zumra. We hunted the flame together, found the light in the darkness, but we were far from done, laa? Now we unleash it. We free the stars, shatter the darkness holding us captive, and return the world to the splendor it once was.” This is completely unbelievable coming from this character, and there are multiple examples of this throughout the book. “The world thieves childhoods,” Zafira said, thinking of Baba’s bow in her still-soft hands. Was it really necessary to say 'thieves' instead of 'steals' here? What did it add exactly, if not a brick to the face in how unrealistic it is that someone would actually say this? THE RELIGIOUS APPROPRIATION/RAMPANT CONTRADICTIONS: For some reason, in this book, random buildings have 'minarets', like minarets are some Arab version of a tower block or a clock tower or towers of a medieval fortress. Here is a basic definition of a MINARET on Google: Minaret, (Arabic: “beacon”) in Islamic religious architecture, the tower from which the faithful are called to prayer five times each day by a muezzin, or crier. Such a tower is always connected with a mosque and has one or more balconies or open galleries. Minarets are exclusive to masjids and the Islamic faith. This is the equivalent of sticking a Buddhist vihara in front of a club, or on a government building. Secondly, there is the complete misuse of dinars and dirhams (the currency). A dinar is a coin MADE FROM GOLD. A dirham is coin made from silver. Look here: “Two dinars fifty,” the safi said before Zafira could speak, eyeing her like an urchin come for scraps. The price of the food above is going to be £50 (for the one dinar) minimum, because the coins are GOLD. We see later on how the currency system/pricing is completely wrong in this book later on, when Nasir has a bounty on his head for 1000 dinars. Let's break this down. According to the author's understanding of ancient Arabian currency: One flatbread today is about £1 (and that's still too much). Looks like they didn't really care about catching him afterall! Overall, the 'Arabian' take of this book was taken straight out of Aladdin, which anyone who has basic understanding of Arab culture will know to be COMPLETELY unlike Arab culture (and many of the elements were taken from India instead). TLDR: the so-called 'Arab' nature of this tale is just hogwash. You don't give people turbans and throw some sand around and call it Arabia. THE INCORRECT ARABIC: "They’re calling you Zhahabi Maliki.” Though there are variations of classical/fusha Arabic, the grammar across the Arabian peninsula is very standard. In Arabic, when you have an adjective and the thing it is describing, the words are flipped. For example, 'beautiful flower' in English would become 'flower beautiful' in Arabic. The above is a literal, English translation which makes no sense in Arabic. Dhahab = gold. The term should be - Malik adh-Dhahab. Now, kudos to you if you want to invent a new language, yet this tale is advertised as Arabian yet it totally misses the mark like this in many places. THE EXCESSIVE SEXUAL INNUENDO FOR A YA: Zafira averted her gaze from the depictions painted across the golden surfaces: men and women unclothed and deeply entwined in various positions. The quote above is one of the more innocent scenes in the book. Every other page is sprinkled with a sexual innuendo, or mention of sexual tension, sexual desire, or sexual expectations. Prostitutes and belly dancers are constantly offering themselves and throwing themselves at the men in this story. The conversations between Altair and Kifah, and Altair and Nasir consist at least 80% of just sexual jokes. I could barely see where the fantasy element of the book even was in between all the intense sexual desire and toxic romance. Not to mention that the relationships are purely sexual. In the first book, she fell for Nasir in a few days’ time – either out of pity or just sexual attraction alone – but definitely not for any real reason with substance. The same ridiculous shift occurred with Nasir, with a huge chasm in his character development. He was ready to kill her, yet, a few days later was inexplicably 'weakened' by her and drawn to her. Whatever ‘love’ they shared is no doubt very shallow. Whilst Zafira is capable of great self-sacrifice, compassion, and forgiving love for Nasir, these qualities seemed to be completely absent from her when she ignored her mother for five years and also didn’t shed even a tear over the death of Deen (not to mention, she actually smiled because of something Altair said, soon after Deen had just died!). At the end of this series, it still stands as a very toxic relationship consisting of much sword-pointing, physical attacking (on Zafira's part - again with the sexism, apparently for her it's okay to hit a man, whilst male domestic abuse is a very real thing), heart-breaking, ignoring one another, not clarifying huge misunderstandings for days when it would only take a few words to do and etc etc - and I am left dumbfounded as to what it is that magnetised them to one another in the first place? Every time they are together, all they think about is their physical desire, and this lasted throughout their every meeting until the very end of the book. THE PACING AND TIMELIME BEING COMPLETELY WRONG: Both books in this series take place over two months: At some point in the past two months, she had carved out half of her heart and given it to him. That was what she had done. And sorry to say, but that is completely and utterly unrealistic. They describe each other as family, as a 'zumra' who understand one another like nobody else has ever done - and apparently this all happened within two months? A task, an epic adventure, the success, the return, the secrets being exposed, the final battle, victory, and dying love - in TWO MONTHS? It is just extremely unbelievable. In regards to pacing, as others have said, this book could have been halved and you would have gotten the same amount of character development and plot and you wouldn't have missed a thing. The characters are so introspective (all coincidentally thinking in the same achaic, verbose, flowery manner that spans a page to express a single thought) that the introspection swallows the book whole and leaves little room for any action of progress to be made. The culmination of every faux pas above has made this book one of the worst I've read in a long, long time. I am all for supporting minority authors, I am from a minority myself - but I don't have such an inferiority complex that anyone who rolls in with a measure of success will become my idol - sense and reason, equality and consideration, will always come first.
“Shiny, and of little brain?” Zafira replied.
“Shiny, and of little brain?” Zafira replied.
Zafira straightened her shoulders and clinked her coins softly, like a fool. Two and a half dinars was far too much. She should have bargained, should have thrown together a ploy as customers were wont to do, but it was Deen who had done all their marketing.
“What about the flatbread alone?”
“One dinar.”
Therefore one dinar = £1.
Nasir's bounty: 1000 dinars = £1000.
The Golden King.
Malik = king.
