decimal rating: 3.50 stars
we hunt the flame by hafsah faizal is an arabian-inspired fantasy that centers around a magic quest of some sort. the story picks up when zafira, a girl who disguises herself as a man to hunt for her people, and nasir, arawiya's assassin prince, are sent on a journey to retrieve a mysterious artifact called the jawarat. along the way, they must learn to trust each other and the others they meet in search of the object, each one with different motivations.
i thought that this book is a solid fantasy read, and what got me really interested from page one was the well-crafted worldbuilding. in following zafira and nasir's journey, i can really see the world come to life. and the magic system was so amazing too! i also enjoyed the storytelling and the sentence structure that hafsah faizal uses with the repetition of very short fragments throughout the narration. both zafira and nasir are also compelling and well-fleshed out main characters, and i especially thought nasir's struggle between making the right choices for himself and the choices that he thought would lead to his father's approval and love was well portrayed.
however, i did think that a number of the side characters were not completely fleshed out, and i didn't end up being very impacted by their individual stories. the side characters that i like the most, deen and yasmine, don't have very big presences in the story and i wish that we could have seen more of them. a few of the plot twists were also kind of predictable. in addition, i think that the pacing also dragged a little bit at certain points along the quest.
overall, i did enjoy we hunt the flame, and perhaps i was just a little bit let down from how high my expectations were from the hype surrounding the book.
we hunt the flame by hafsah faizal is an arabian-inspired fantasy that centers around a magic quest of some sort. the story picks up when zafira, a girl who disguises herself as a man to hunt for her people, and nasir, arawiya's assassin prince, are sent on a journey to retrieve a mysterious artifact called the jawarat. along the way, they must learn to trust each other and the others they meet in search of the object, each one with different motivations.
i thought that this book is a solid fantasy read, and what got me really interested from page one was the well-crafted worldbuilding. in following zafira and nasir's journey, i can really see the world come to life. and the magic system was so amazing too! i also enjoyed the storytelling and the sentence structure that hafsah faizal uses with the repetition of very short fragments throughout the narration. both zafira and nasir are also compelling and well-fleshed out main characters, and i especially thought nasir's struggle between making the right choices for himself and the choices that he thought would lead to his father's approval and love was well portrayed.
however, i did think that a number of the side characters were not completely fleshed out, and i didn't end up being very impacted by their individual stories. the side characters that i like the most, deen and yasmine, don't have very big presences in the story and i wish that we could have seen more of them. a few of the plot twists were also kind of predictable. in addition, i think that the pacing also dragged a little bit at certain points along the quest.
overall, i did enjoy we hunt the flame, and perhaps i was just a little bit let down from how high my expectations were from the hype surrounding the book.