Play Book Tag discussion

This book could have been but fails. I think this is the best thing I can say about it.

This is a retelling after the story of Scheherazade, the one who captures the heart of a king prone to execute women at each dawn with her stories. Here, the reason for those execution, which is presented as a big mystery at the beginning of the story differs. Shahrzad (as the main character is called here, using the Arabic form of the name) reason for entering this marriage is also different. It is revenge, not an old link of friendship as in the original version. She is also in love with another boy (I call him boy because he is a young male and because this is the way the author used to refer to him). The genre of this book is romance with some elements that fall at the border between fantasy and magical realism in my opinion. Till here, all is good. The premise is interesting, Ahdieh's style of writing has many beautiful elements. The problem comes with the execution of the story.

We don't have a valid reason for why Shahrzad falls in love with Khalid after only two nights together, nights when all she did was tell him a story while he spoke mostly nothing. Not even once during this time has she at least thought of him as attractive. Others point to her he is a beautiful man/boy, but she only compares him with a tiger, so I really don't see from where her love is coming from. Khalid falling in love with Shahrzad is somehow better explain with the letter at the end, that might lead one to believe it was love at first sight or something.

Then we have Tariq, Shahrzad's other love interest. To tell the truth, I didn't really understood his story. He tries to gather an army and free Shahrzad, but then... then what? It's not very clear what happens. Also, Tariq was very annoying, stupid and reckless.

There were Jalal and Despina, which probably want to represent a second love pair, but there isn't much of them. Jalal's role is to help Khalid take good decisions and Despina's role is to make Shahrzad seem less high up in the sky or something. I must confess, this was the only thing I've liked, the relationship between the girls, but we don't have a resolution on that plane either. I know, there's another volume in this series, but there seem to be too many lose ends to my liking.

I think this book would have been better if the author would have concentrated more on the love story, putting a little more effort into developing that right and credibly, instead of losing time with revolutionary scenes that go nowhere. I could have done without all that useless politic.

I gave this book three stars because the writing is good, and the love story has some interesting parts. It didn't seem fair to give it less. It also didn't seem fair to give it more, for all those aspect that lack a better handling.

Thanks for the great review. I was considering this book too, since I read the original (or one version of it) last winter. I didn't think the romance was well developed there either. There was relatively little about Shaherazade after the beginning. It was mainly a frame around the stories. Some were great, but 1000 + pages of repetitive short stories (and stories nested within stories) gets very tedious.

This one is less about the short story and more about Scheherazade's story or the way the author imagines it. There is only one short story that becomes a metaphor to the way the Caliph sees her. As I've said, this could have been good (and there are many who thought it good), but I felt like something was missing. I feel like the author did not devote enough attention to the things that matter (or matter to me, anyway).