The Wrath and the Dawn

By: Renee Ahdieh

Narrated by: Ariana Delawari

Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's Summary

A sumptuous and epically told love story inspired by A Thousand and One Nights.

Every dawn brings horror to a different family in a land ruled by a killer. Khalid, the 18-year-old caliph of Khorasan, takes a new bride each night only to have her executed at sunrise. So it is a suspicious surprise when 16-year-old Shahrzad volunteers to marry Khalid. But she does so with a clever plan to stay alive and exact revenge on the caliph for the murder of her best friend and countless other girls. Shazi's wit and will, indeed, get her through to the dawn that no others have seen, but with a catch...she's falling in love with the very boy who killed her dearest friend.

She discovers that the murderous boy-king is not all that he seems and neither are the deaths of so many girls. Shazi is determined to uncover the reason for the murders and to break the cycle once and for all.

©2015 Renée Ahdieh (P)2015 Listening Library

Wonderful Story, Passable Narrator

I thoroughly enjoyed the story. It was well paced and wonderfully entertaining.
My one gripe was that the narrator wasn't as good as I hoped. Her reading was halting at times and every character was the same, I had a difficult time figuring out who was talking sometimes. I usually listen to everything on 1.5 because I'm impatient, but with this one, I think it needs to be listened to a little faster to keep it engaging.

8 of 8 people found this review helpful

Great story horrible narrator

Any additional comments?

Loved the story, but the narrator is awful. No difference in the characters voices- and there are many so it is hard to follow at times. She is also monotone and sounds like she is reading to children. I listen to a lot of books but this performance was so bad I gave up and bought the kindle version. I've heard worse but this was surprisingly bad for a best seller. The story itself is great- strong heroine,magic powers, love, intrigue. Excited for the next book- but only once I started to read the book myself. Narrator almost ruined a good book for me.

6 of 6 people found this review helpful

The reader ruined the book.

Good take on a classic story. A bit heavy handed with the SAT vocabulary. But mostly, the narrator is terrible! She sounds like a 6th grader learning to read out loud dramatically.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

Wait for the next book to be released

This book leaves the storyline hanging. I wish I had waited for the next book to be released before listening.

The story is interesting and original. I really enjoyed the characters and the authors style of writing. I hope to see more of this series on audible very soon.

9 of 10 people found this review helpful

Very good

I was hoping it would be a one and done but looks like it will be a series. If the rest of the series is as good as the first book it will be a good one. I plan on replaying the book as the names are hard to follow at times .

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Voices

My only criticism is that the narrative, while very well spoken and clear lacked variety. I've listened to several audio books, and the narration really makes. If you've ever listened to Susan Erikson narrate in the In Death series, you'll know what I mean. I found it hard to catch when someone besides Shazi was speaking since everyone sounded the same. Other than that, this book was surprisingly captivating.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Impressive for YA

I thought the pace and the structuring of this were actually quite extraordinary for being written for YA. The literary parallels and motifs were elegant, but not overdone. You seem to always get the tedious descriptions of clothes and appearances in stories written for this target audience (maybe I just didn't notice it when I was younger). I did, however, like the organic use of traditional terms without excuse or explanation. Other reviewers have noted the hints of magical realism, as well. There was, of course, the common genre trope of a headstrong progagonista, conveniently skilled with bow and arrow, unassumingly gorgeous, with hidden magic she never knew about, falling for sulking boy, etc etc. But despite all of that, it somehow managed to NOT feel like a giant cliche.
The most refreshing piece was to read about young relationships that were messy, honest, and evolving in believable trajectories. I haven't seen that since Hunger Games.

Yes, the narration was on the blander side, but I didn't mind it once I was invested.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Great book

Loved everything. The book was amazing and the reader really sucked you into the story

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

1001 nights like never before!

Shaharazad did not come to the castle for love, or hope of winning over the king's heart. Shaharazad came to the castle for revenge. The Wrath & The Dawn is an Amazing take on 1001 Arabian Nights, but instead of telling the stories to a wayward king this tale takes you into the politics of the kingdom, and the choices that haunt all those who live behind the walls.

3 of 4 people found this review helpful

Way too much left undone - returning it.

*minor spoilers* I picked this up because of all the buzz recently, but was really rather disappointed. There were parts that were quite promising, and it was an interesting premise, but I rather felt like it was unfinished (and I don't just mean the giant 'where the hell is the rest' cliff hanger). There was quite a bit left hanging or unexplained: the carpet and the teacher, the significance of the falcon, the insignias, the sort of attempt at magical realism but not, the curse. And don't even get me started on the quality of the dialog. I'd love to believe that the unfinished-ness was an intentional play to recreate the nightly story telling and the dawn, but I don't think there was a strong enough nod to the original (She told what 2 stories in this?) to make that work. However if it was an intentional parallel than kudos to the author for the meta-nod.

This book seems to be trying to capitalize on the recent trend in things like movies of splitting sequels/final installments into as many money grabbing parts as possible. The problem here is that this is a first book and doesn't have the already weighted fan base or the internal back story to support it.

Overall love the idea but am ultimately not impressed with the execution. I'll be returning this one.

3 of 5 people found this review helpful

loved it!

loved it, it was beautifully read and a magical story. Can't wait to listen to the next book!

Poorly Executed...

Overall, I wanted to like this story. The premise is original, but more then once the plot, (especially at the end) is unsatisfying and leaves the story unresolved with no real value. My biggest bugbear is that this does not make use of the rich emotional material that is at hand from telling Arabian Nights from our heroine's perspective beyond punative, teenagery rebuttals lacking any true depth. Any conflict in this book just ended up sounding unexplored, angsty and lacking the sardonic notes it was trying to hit. I struggled to get to the end 5 chapters in...

Passable story. Terrible narrator.

The narrator was monotonous. The story (a retelling if 1001 nights) was enjoyable barring some terrible dialogue, lazy descriptions and poorly developed characters.

Same general teenage angst

eh, story follows the same teenage angst as most do nowadays but I did like the retelling of this classic tale.

such a clear narrator

Would you consider the audio edition of The Wrath and the Dawn to be better than the print version?

no, for me printer version is always better

What did you like best about this story?

the emotions that each character show

Which scene did you most enjoy?

always shazi and the khalif

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

yes

Any additional comments?

lovely retelling

Lovely story

I loved the story and the slow development in the relationship between the main characters. I couldn't understand how a person who was killing women daily deserved someone who loved him but I found my answers...
I didn't know though that it wasn't a standalone book and when it finished it was like "where is the rest...?"
The narrator has done it great, the only BUT it would be that she was changing the volume of her voice all the time, which is very nice for the interpretation, but not for my ears... I had to be controlling the volume settings every minute.