NOTHING CAN SAVE THIS NASTY BOOK, IT'S UNSUITABLE FOR YOUNG READERS.

If you are a young reader, stay away from these books. They try to tell you that murderers and rapists are just normal people you can have a romantic relationship with. This is a lie. Murderers and rapists are not only criminals, they are also abusive. Abuse is never romantic. Abuse is abuse. Please read a different YA book where the main character does not end up with her BEST FRIEND'S RAPIST AND MURDERER.

If you are a parent, please do not give your child this book to read. It is nasty filth that portrays women as doormats and murderers and rapist as dating material. Reading something like this causes more harm than good.

This book was also adapted as a webtoon. It's beautiful. It's free to read. The story is still horrible trash but at least it LOOKS GOOD. Also, you can save your dollars for some real books out there.



Renée Ahdieh tries to entice her young audience with copious amount of purple prose, distracting them from the absolutely abysmal behavior of her protagonists, who are all depraved ASS PUMPKINS and I hate them. I LOATHE them. Ahdieh writes about horrible, nasty worms that need to die but they don't and she fully expects you to sympathize with them.

This duology (it really should've been one book and not two. And also it should have been shorter, or else have had more substance) is of course a retelling of the famous story of Shehrazad and the abusive piece of trash dude who killed one hot virgin every night after raping her. In the original, the horrific assholery of said dude comes across quite clearly, what with Shehrazad fearing for her life and stuff. In Ahdieh's version, the dumb piece of trash is the ROMANTIC HERO instead of the ANTAGONIST, and it clearly shows. It's very disgusting.

Sharzad, the heroine of these two horrible books, is a nauseating, pathetic, trashy doormat who initially sets out to get revenge for her dead friend (guess who offed her) but then meets a hot guy and proceeds to kiss his murdering, raping ass. Fuck him, fuck her, fuck these books.

I question the sanity and the good intentions of the people who decided that this was a good YA series for young readers. The sultan never redeems himself. He is a rapist. He is a murderer. These are the most serious crimes that a person can commit. He committed them many, many times. He does not atone. And the female lead just forgives him (which is NOT her place at all).

In these books the crimes of the sultan are hardly addressed. The source material is what it is; we cannot change it. But we can decide what we do with it when adapting it. At the very least, there ought to have been a very large redemption arc. Since there wasn't, my only comment is that the two books in the series are detrimental to the wellbeing of the children who end up reading them.

THIS SERIES PULLED ME INTO A MASSIVE SLUMP...

The Arcadia series is CHOCK-FULL of tropes I dislike

*beautiful, loved-by-everyone, too-goody-two-shoes-to-be-true heroine
*horses. I mean centaurs. Anyway ... horses.
*sheep
*sheep sex
*horse sex
*heroine has pity sex with everyone who gives her hints (but it's not because she's horny, but because she's ... kind. So odd)
*cats presented in a negative light
*heroine is TSTL and everyone agrees she needs to be protected from the realities of Arcadia
*heroine wants to solve everything by confronting it head on ... but alone. Because she doesn't want others to get hurt. She's a pacifist like that! But also really itching for a fight as long as it's just her VS the world. Did I mention she can't fight?


There is also a lot I am on board with

*interesting side characters and foreshadowing
*villain incel wizard (it's fun to see him suffering)
*a cat, transformed into a human form
*griffin baby being cute
*Tonka (he's a horse man but I like him)
*the story in between all the "living with horses/sheep/minotaurs" filler is actually somewaht interesting. Only the droughts are really long and the actual content is too sparse. I guess this whole series should have been 1 single novel.


Let's face it though I would have NEVER continued this series if this wasn't an R.Lee Smith series. I'm religiously reading everything she writes but TBH high fantasy stuff with four-legged love interests (or casual pity hook-ups in this case) with perfect heroine are not my thing :(


Pre-review


When the heroine is a beautiful, fundamentally good, reliable, Irish special snowflake (not like other girls!) who goes through life winsomely disheveled and everyone loves her ...



... I guess it's just the reader's duty to point out her bullshit at every chance.

THIS SERIES PULLED ME INTO A MASSIVE SLUMP...

The Arcadia series is CHOCK-FULL of tropes I dislike

*beautiful, loved-by-everyone, too-goody-two-shoes-to-be-true heroine
*horses. I mean centaurs. Anyway ... horses.
*sheep
*sheep sex
*horse sex
*heroine has pity sex with everyone who gives her hints (but it's not because she's horny, but because she's ... kind. So odd)
*cats presented in a negative light
*heroine is TSTL and everyone agrees she needs to be protected from the realities of Arcadia
*heroine wants to solve everything by confronting it head on ... but alone. Because she doesn't want others to get hurt. She's a pacifist like that! But also really itching for a fight as long as it's just her VS the world. Did I mention she can't fight?


There is also a lot I am on board with

*interesting side characters and foreshadowing
*villain incel wizard (it's fun to see him suffering)
*a cat, transformed into a human form
*griffin baby being cute
*Tonka (he's a horse man but I like him)
*the story in between all the "living with horses/sheep/minotaurs" filler is actually somewaht interesting. Only the droughts are really long and the actual content is too sparse. I guess this whole series should have been 1 single novel.


Let's face it though I would have NEVER continued this series if this wasn't an R.Lee Smith series. I'm religiously reading everything she writes but TBH high fantasy stuff with four-legged love interests (or casual pity hook-ups in this case) with perfect heroine are not my thing :(


Pre-review


When the heroine is a beautiful, fundamentally good, reliable, Irish special snowflake (not like other girls!) who goes through life winsomely disheveled and everyone loves her ...



... I guess it's just the reader's duty to point out her bullshit at every chance.