Rebel of the Sands || Review

(synopsis from goodreads)

She’s more gunpowder than girl—and the fate of the desert lies in her hands.

Mortals rule the desert nation of Miraji, but mystical beasts still roam the wild and barren wastes, and rumor has it that somewhere, djinni still practice their magic. But there's nothing mystical or magical about Dustwalk, the dead-end town that Amani can't wait to escape from. Destined to wind up "wed or dead," Amani’s counting on her sharpshooting skills to get her out of Dustwalk. When she meets Jin, a mysterious and devastatingly handsome foreigner, in a shooting contest, she figures he’s the perfect escape route. But in all her years spent dreaming of leaving home, she never imagined she'd gallop away on a mythical horse, fleeing the murderous Sultan's army, with a fugitive who's wanted for treason. And she'd never have predicted she'd fall in love with him...or that he'd help her unlock the powerful truth of who she really is.

{all views expressed in this review are my own}

{also all my pics, except for the one by the gr synopsis}

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"I was born in the desert. The desert was a part of me."

Well this was something fabulous. 

I built up so much hype for myself with this book, and it certainly did not disappoint. 

Amani is probably one of my favorite ya heroines currently. She's a gun-slinging, sarcastic, tough-skinned girl who doesn't take crap from anybody and god, I love her. She does things to advance herself toward her goals, but at the same time she cares so deeply for people, and I love that there was that even balance of her doing what she wanted to do, while also being caring + helping others along the way. 

Jin was great as well, and he matched Amani stride for stride through their journey. His character was terrific, and I loved all the interactions between Amani and him. 

The secondary characters were amazing, too. I adored Shazad, who had basically thrown all the gender stereotypes the desert folk had placed on her out the window, and become a general + insanely intelligent. Then there was Hala who was basically the living embodiment of fire, and kind of a jerk??? But I felt her callousness was warranted by her past, + she was extremely interesting. And Bahi-- OH, MY PRECIOUS BAHI. I wanted to wrap him in blankets and protect him from everything. He's adorable. 

Nearly everything about this book was amazing. The action was immense, and scattered throughout the whole book. There was lots of shooting, and fighting, and jumping off trains, and jumping on them. The world-building was very well done, and I felt that all the information was presented in a non-info-dump way. I adored how most of the history and myths came in the form of campfire stories. It made the whole thing just seem that much more realistic/old-western influenced. I didn't see many of the plot twists coming; the plot itself and the set-up/execution of everything was fantastically done, and gripping.

The book is advertised as being some kind of extremely passionate tale filled with romance, and I was so pleasantly surprised to find that this wasn't the actual case and the romance was not a forefront element of the story. It was more like slow-burn (which I am an utter sucker for okay) and it was handled extremely well. A thousand thanks goes to the author for portraying things realistically and being one of the few ya authors to acknowledge that,'hey, maybe it's not a good idea to have a makeout session in the middle of this very intense action scene.' Thank you Alwyn Hamilton. Thank you. 

I do have one little quibble though...

The only issue I have that kept this from being a five star book was more a personal thing-- but I found that the names of both the characters and places tended to be really confusing. Especially when someone was referenced from the beginning, and it was like, who was that again? But it was only a small issue that I struggled with more near the end when all the things came together and was a jumble of names on the page. 

I so needed/wanted a map of the land. Somebody make a petition to get one in book 2. 

Overall, the book was terrific. An amazing debut from an amazing author. I need the second book NOW.

* 4.5/5 stars *

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i haven't posted in forever and i'm so sorry about that. school has been hectic, but i'm now on spring break so there shall certainly be more posts coming your way soon. 

i hope you enjoyed this-- i've been wanting to post book reviews for a while but just finally worked up the nerve to do it. :3 

Have you read Rebel of the Sands yet? If so, what did you think? If not, I command you to go out and get a copy of it ASAP. You need this glorious book in your life. 

{this review was originally posted on my goodreads}