Reviews

This Woven Kingdom by Tahereh Mafi

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rachowl_gk's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

finnishelderberry's review against another edition

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DNF 20% it's good just not what I want to read right now

clace_19's review against another edition

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4.0

4.25!

“You have consumed my thoughts since the moment I met you,” he said to her. “I feel now, in your presence, entirely strange. I think I might fetch you the moon if only to spare your tears again.”

This book was so well written like the writing in this book was beautiful that I actually fell in love. The way she described everything, the dialogues, the worldbuilding and the characters all of them delivered! I honestly went in waiting fall for Cyrus but warmed up to Kamran?? I wont lie for 150 pages I was so lost as to what was happening but the vibes were there and I was enjoying this book solely based on vibes but then the plot started to progress although slow the payoff to the build up was very well done.

“Never before had he been so consumed by the thoughts of anyone.”

Alizeh is among one of the best written fmc's because I loved reading about her point of view and not once was I bored because I wanted to know more about her and there was this sense of mystery like the characters were hiding something and you just wanted to know what was happening so, I think the way she executed that was very well done. Kamran, I don' know what to think of you because on one hand I was at the start really bored of him and wanted to get rid of him but then his story became more interesting and after 150 page mark when both the main characters meet he gets more interesting also the way he would describe Alizeh and the things that he would say were so swoon-worthy and he was actually worthy of being a king because of his heart....Im so conflicted because I like him but then there's this other guy who shows up near the end and now I AM CONFUSED. Cyrus the other guy who showed up at the end and left my emotions in a state of disarray. How do you plead for your crimes? The crimes being making me choose between Kamran and him and also for being charming and changing my perspective of the story in just the last 50 pages. Hazan cutie but also sus??

“He'd forgotten how beautiful she was. This revelation was astonishing to him, for he'd spent more time than he cared to admit thinking about the girl, conjuring her face when he closed his eyes at night. He did not think of himself capable of forgetting anything about her, and yet he must have, for he was struck stupid anew, drawing near her now like a hungry flame to tinder.”

The romance is why I hate love triangles because the way we got the trope forbidden romance between Kamran and Alizeh...it was lusty but its one of the rare cases where I liked it just because of the way he talked about her, it was so beautiful. So we get this Cinderella type forbidden romance with angst and swoon-worthy dialogues being built up between them and I am rooting for them and then came Cyrus with his lush copper hair and cocky one liners and drops a mega bomb on us in the final page and im just sitting there staring at the wall trying to process what to think of it.

“He realized, with some despair, that everything would now remind him of her. The very sun and moon, the shifting of lightness and dark.”

The plot was so fucking confusing like I literally was so confused that I had to ask Roxy about some stuff but I absolutely loved the Persian mythology aspect of this book and it was so similar to Arabic (the language) that I mistook at times for that but nvm that, back to the plot, but I loved when it started making sense, it was giving City of Brass and I love that book sm. I also loved how it was being built up and we thought the the payoff would be in the next book but a part of it literally happened in the last 70 pages and it was so satisfying because there's this character whom I hate sm and also Hazan you were playing mind games with me and that was not appreciated because the ending had me shooketh.

Overall, Tahereh did not disappoint at all!!
~~~
Cyrus- written by the same author who wrote Aaron Warner??? I NEED THIS!!

(Besides, it's been a while since I've read Tahereh's works and they tend to be among books I love and Roxy really liked this one so

telimena's review against another edition

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4.0

Okayyy, i didnt expect to enjoy it so much.
It was easy to read, i really liked the main character (although she was irritating with how naive sometimes she was), and in general all the characters were interesting and not your typical division “i’m good, i’m bad!”
I’m very excited to read the next one (hopefully with more action)

heiroffire1989's review against another edition

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3.0

“I think I might fetch you the moon if only to spare your tears again.”

Ahhh mennn, I feel so conflicted about this book. And my review is just as I overall felt about this book; chaotic :( I'm so bummed!

I was off to a good start with it, because the writing was so deliciously whymsical, I found both main characters extremely intriguing from the get go, the bits and pieces of politics, the bits and pieces of Arabic myths/fantasy elements like the Jinn was interesting…

…But the further I got, the more I felt like ‘it just isn’t coming together’ as beautifully as I wanted it to and was expecting to. I felt not much of a connection between basically every character that had interaction with another one because there’s not a lot of focus on (developing) relationships between all characters and not much background story in some regards, mostly superficial. The main characters do have some fun banter/dialogues, so they’re a bit of an exception but then they are only together for like 5-10% of the entire book? so there’s not much of something I really liked much present unfortunately.

The political elements, the entire story-line development… Things come across a bit chaotic/underdeveloped writing wise. I feel like these elements could’ve been stronger, especially seeing how thick the book is. I think this is mostly because there’s a lot of focus on the mental health side of both main characters; a lot of writing about their thoughts, about LIFE. All this Is beautifully written down though, and was what mostly had me continuing the book, but it also is, I think, the reason a lot of other story/book element developments stagnates a lot of the time, in my honest opinion.

Overall, I rate it 3 stars. 3 meager stars.
This book does have some very interesting parts; I loved the banter between the MC’s, I love the writing style by the author on itself. I’m not sure yet though if I’ll continue reading the series; I’ll see what I decide when the sequel comes around. The writing was beautiful, and I am interested in seeing more about some characters, but the story itself wasn’t really able to ‘reel me in’ and I just didn’t get a good feel on the connection between characters which is important to me but maybe those things will get better in the next book. But, well… An almost 500 pages counting book should’ve been able to make me feel a bit ‘more’ so I’m a tad disappointed.