not a huge fan, but it got good at fifty-ish percent

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(2.5 stars)

There’s so much hype surrounding this book so I’m not sure why it took me this long to get around to reading it. And I’ve got to say, I’m still not sure it was worth my time. It was enjoyable, but only towards the second half. Before that I might as well have been falling asleep.

“Be as victorious as the name I have given you, and bring the desert to its knees.”

So, about that first half. I simply didn’t care. I didn’t care about the characters, or the kingdom, or anything at all. We Hunt the Flame tries so hard to cast a spell, and it quite simply does not succeed. At least, not for the first ~250 pages. And even afterwards the success is debatable, but more on that later.

Faizal’s writing is beautiful, but everything still falls flat. I found the characters irritating, except for a single side character. Maybe this is insensitive of me. Actually, it’s almost certainly insensitive of me, but I found Zafira frustratingly naive, and Nasir feckless. Maybe I should be more empathetic, but I’m not. He is entirely without a backbone. Which I don’t really have a problem with, except that it makes the rest of the story seem rather unlikely. Also, I just plain don’t like him, feckless or not.

"A life without purpose may be no life, but a life without love is nothing but an existence."

Despite my earlier bashing of the book, and the characters, and really everything about it, I did enjoy the second half. I was looking at reviews on Goodreads, and this actually seems to be a fairly common sentiment. If you’re willing to slog through the first half, then the second is definitely fun to read. The characters become more likable (or at least I got used to them), you learn more about the one character I liked from the start, and the plot picks up the pace. Also, this book is very quotable. And I love quotes. Little soundbites of beautiful writing and sharp truths.

I will say that I’m still not *fully* invested in the romance. It’s… fine. I’m not dead set against it, but also, it certainly isn’t otp material.

So: I’m not sure if I’d recommend this. If you want to read it, you probably won’t hate it. Whether it’s worth your time or not pretty much depends on the sequel, which I haven’t read. I haven’t decided if I want to yet.