Amazon.com: Customer reviews: We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya, 1)

Top positive review

Sweeping Young Adult fantasy debut you don't want to miss!

Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2019

WE HUNT THE FLAME is a sweeping Young Adult fantasy debut from Hafsah Faizal. This book has been one of my most anticipated reads of 2019. I’ve been watching the progress of Hafsah's story on social media since it was simply a dream, a work in progress, dubbed her “Arabian fantasy”. So you better believe that I was extremely excited (there may have been high pitched squealing) when I was selected to receive an Advanced Reader’s Copy from Macmillan/Fierce Reads.

The story is told through alternating POV's between female and male protagonist. Zafira is a hunter who must hide her identity in order to help provide for her people. Nasir is an assassin and a prince who just wants to escape. Along with the two narrators we are blessed with so many more wonderful characters. This unlikely crew is forced to work together and set out on an impossible quest to restore magic to Arawiya. On their quest to save the kingdom, they may very well save themselves. But everyone’s secrets could bring everything crashing down.

This was my first read with so much Arabic in the dialogue and narrative, but there was enough context that I got used to it. The last 50-75 pages had me on the edge of my seat, with sweaty palms and looking around my living room say "Omg!..... OMG!!!.... Did you just see that happen?!? Did that really happen?" WE HUNT THE FLAME is imaginative, full of twists and turns, mouthwatering food (WARNING: Do not read on an empty stomach. Seriously, get ready to start cooking!) and breathtaking scenery (you can truly picture yourself there). I need book 2 and a reread, sadly only one of these can happen right now, Haha! Do yourself a favor and pick this one up. Hafsah's writing and characters will captivate you from the very beginning. I can't wait to see where this story goes and what she dreams up next!

*A free copy was sent in exchange for an honest review, all thought and opinions are my own.

44 people found this helpful

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Has(s)an family

Old tropes with brown protagonists and Arab names

Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2021

I was hoping to see the characters display some of the virtues that are important to young practicing western Muslims rather than the usual tropes with the usual characters painted brown and given Arab names. Even if the names and color of the characters might be relatable to young Muslim readers, vices such as lust, cursing, and lewd jokes which all the characters possess (and are content with possessing) would not.

It is understandable that the author did not want to explicitly include her faith in a story that takes place in a fantasy world. However, this does not mean that characters cannot possess virtues that all religions (including those of the Arab world) value and are rapidly disappearing in our fast-paced, entertainment-driven modern world.

I would not be able to gift this novel to my children or nieces and nephews because there is too much that is inappropriate, but I hope to see future stories from this author that emphasize inward character more than outward skin color and foreign-sounding names.

19 people found this helpful

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From the United States

H. Mikelson

Painful Reading

Reviewed in the United States on December 12, 2021

Verified Purchase

This was very difficult for me to read. The writing is so poetic that it makes it difficult to follow what is going on. I would read a couple of lines and have to sit and think about what it meant. That might be OK in poetry but it got to be really annoying in the prose. Like other reviewers I found the characters and world building kind of blah. I started out liking the main character but midway through the book I lost interest in most of the characters. I thought it could have benefited from some alternate POV instead of just sticking to the two main characters. The world did not seem very interesting either, most of the book is some sort of vast desert with ruins scattered about. The action scenes seemed rather random as well. I will probably not bother to read the second book.

2 people found this helpful

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Korynne Michele

Cliche YA story in an Arabian setting

Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2019

Zafira is the Hunter. Her job is to venture to Sharr and acquire a certain book that will bring magic back to the land. Nasir is the prince and an assassin. His job is to follow the Hunter to Sharr and take the book once she finds it and then kill her.

Unfortunately I just . . . didn’t care?

I read We Hunt the Flame for the young adult book club that I’m moderating at my work, and I likely wouldn’t have read it otherwise as the story did not really appeal to me. I tried to go in with an open mind but when I reached page 100 and still wasn’t connecting with the characters or caring about the story, I knew I would have a rough time continuing. And it isn’t even until a third of the way through the book that the plot starts, so it felt to me like there was a lot of unnecessary prose that just dragged me down.

The plot itself isn’t wholly original either, and it’s also rather predictable. It’s no surprise the prince doesn’t want to be the assassin (do I need to mention again that I’m tired of reading about soft assassins that don’t actually assassinate anyone?) and that he falls in love with Zafira and doesn’t want to kill her, the exact person he’s been sent to kill. And it’s no surprise that Zafira likes him back and is conflicted about her feelings because he’s an assassin. The story was also excruciatingly slow even while listening to the audiobook, which is rare because audiobooks usually speed up a story. But also, the female narrator’s voice kept switching tones and I swear I thought there were two different female narrators because of how much her voice changed, and it threw me off every time; it was very distracting.

This book is inspired by ancient Arabia and included Arabic words mixed into the narrative. I have no issue with a secondary language being used as emphasis or to describe certain events in a story, but I do not think Arabic was incorporated very well in We Hunt the Flame. It only added confusion when I would come across them, and I had to stop at every new encounter to pull up the online dictionary and pronunciation guide just to know what was happening.

One thing I did like about this book is that it has a clean romance. It seems like every YA book these days features sex scenes or at least alludes to them, but this book didn’t and I greatly appreciated that. I can’t say if that will change for the rest of the books in the series but at least this one was clean. I also liked that the chapters were super short. I love short chapters. Other than that though, there wasn’t anything that stood out that I liked.

Overall I don’t think We Hunt the Flame is really worth the read. Other than the ties to Arabic culture, it’s just another basic young adult fantasy with a reused plotline that doesn’t add anything new to the genre. I will not be continuing on with this series because I don’t care what happens to the characters in the next book, and I honestly thought this book could have been a standalone story if a few things at the end were tweaked just a bit, but of course it’s going to be a series instead. This book has been very popular and enjoyed by many, but it wasn’t for me.

7 people found this helpful

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Kathy Lopes

Not Impressive At All

Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2021

You know those books that you anticipate so highly, and then turn out to be dumpster fires? That is the best description of this book. I was so excited for this, and then it ended up being something a hated reading.

First off, this is one of the most convoluted books I have ever read. It should be straightforward, right? Characters must journey across a desert to restore magic. Somehow though, I spent the entire time confused as to what was happening. I had to reread every page so many times just to figure out who was talking, and what was happening.

On top of that, this is marketed as enemies-to-lovers. This was not enemies to lovers. Or, at least, it wasn't good enemies-to-lovers. Good enemies-to-lovers has banter, angst, tension, and leaves me on the edge of my seat. This just had me confused as to where romantic feelings came from... Neither of our characters had anything going for them, so that was a mess. Of course though, the romance wasn't even present for the first half of the book, and then it was full of "smoldering gazes". Even though our characters didn't even kiss until chapter 82, this was somehow still insta-love.

And, both of our characters had the personality of a piece of cardboard. Nasir, our love interest had maybe 20 lines of dialogue in the entire book. Yet, we're supposed to fall for him? His perspective started off so strong, so I was so disappointed! Hes called the Prince of Death for God's sake. I wanted death. I wanted murder. I wanted destruction. I didn't want some stereotypical tragic past about a character with daddy issues. That's been overused.

Zafira on the other hand, wasn't even brooding. I don't even think I can offer a single adjective to describe her. She was just there. She flounce around every once in a while, made a comment about being with a bunch of murderers, and then went back to whatever she did for the almost 500 pages of this book. She was as useless as Elain.

Of course, we also had our comic relief characters. Benyamin, and Altair. (I'm forgetting one, but I don't really care) Don't ask me to tell them apart, because I can't. Once again, they contributed nothing to the plot, and weren't anything special.

It says a lot that this took me over a week to read. Normally, a book will take me, at max, two days. I never wanted to read this, so I just avoided it. Even with the amount of glowing reviews this has, I can't find a single redeeming feature for this book.

Thanks to BookishFirst for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review

2 people found this helpful

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Jaybird

Often Confusing

Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2019

This book feels like it had great potential, but that the author stopped at a first draft. The premise is interesting, but I often found myself confused as to why certain characters acted the way they did - especially Zafira. The author frequently uses contradictory statements along the lines of Zafira hated the Arz so much she kind of loved it. Which makes no sense at all. Also there are too many new words - I kept stopping to try to figure out what is zul? Was habibi a curse or endearment? Is a kaftan clothes or a creature - there were too many new terms without using them enough for familiarity, which just adds to the overall confusion of this story. There are also a few repeated phrases like "shell of her ear" that just shows the author is not methodical or careful in her writing. I have NO IDEA how this hit the NYT's bestseller list - probably like me, many people thought the cover and description were cool. The fact that it was a Barnes and Noble YA book club made me think it was worth the time to read - which it wasn't.
SPOILERS:
The character Deen seems to exist only to die abruptly, Yasmine and Lara just to provide Zafira with backstory. I kind of wish the book had started with her stepping foot on Shurr, rather than all the convoluted attempts to give her context and explain why she's going. The Sultana's inability to protect her son is weird - she's one of the 6 sisters so why can't she just take the dumb amulet away from the Sultan? I actually thought that Nasir's character was probably the best developed one, and his scars and motivation gradually unfolds in a way that makes sense. Some of the other elements don't make sense, like WHY do they leave Altair behind???? Apparently Zafira is worth rescuing but he isn't. It's purely manufactured cliff-hanger. It's a shame because the seed of an interesting tale is in there, it is just buried beneath the amateurish storytelling. Maybe by her 3rd or 4th book this author will be worth reading, but I won't be picking up the sequel.

3 people found this helpful

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Crossroad Reviews

Disappointed

Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2021

I had so many high hopes for this title. It was one of my most anticipated reads of this year and I am so sad that it just didn't work out. For me this is one of those books that was just trying way to hard to be amazing. The story was bogged down with descriptions as well as real words blending with made up ones as well as slang. I spend half the time during the first part of the book just trying to figure out what words meant. Wondering if they were just spelled wrong in my copy or if it was intentional.

This also made the story hard to follow. With all the descriptions it made it really hard to follow the story. I spend most of my time reading about what a character was doing in the descriptions and that really took away from the story itself. I wished that the descriptions would have been cut down by 3/4 at the least as they really over powered the story.

The next thing is the characters. We have Zafira that reminds me of the runaway bride. It seemed she was always running away or towards something. This in my mind made her very fickle as a character and well I kind of didn't like her at all. Now Nasir I really did enjoy go figure. He was cold yes but at least he felt full rounded out to me. At least for the most part. The romance between these two was kind of meh in my book. I think it could have been better done. But as this is a debut I hope that the author learns from writing this title so the next one could be even better.

This one suffers from being extremely slow to start and just didn't pull me in at all. It failed to use words that were easily understandable and was bogged down by descriptions to the point where I was totally confused on what in the world was going on. The romance was lacked luster and the characters failed to make me fall in love with them.

Helpful

Nikki H. Rose

Not For Me

Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2021

I knew it when I picked it that this would be a tough book for me. I was captivated by the cover and the synopsis, and I wanted to give it a try, but in all honesty – fantasy just isn't for me. I struggle to hold onto the reality in these books (which makes sense, honestly, given the genre), but the realistic element is something that I just personally need in order to feel grounded in a story – and to appreciate it throughout the piece. For this reason, this book was challenging for me, and despite being beautifully written, I didn't find myself enjoying it.

Again, I'm sure this is a perfect choice for those who enjoy fantasy. That just isn't me, unfortunately – no matter how hard I try to change that fact.

Even still, I give a lot of respect and appreciation to the author for a BEAUTIFUL cover creation and the amazing creation of a story that I know I could never have come up with on my own.

Helpful

Karen McConnaughey

Couldn't finish it.

Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2022

As Cynthia Espeseth said: "Too many unknown words and references. I didn't finish this book. Most of time I was lost among words that meant nothing. Even looking them up led me nowhere. Won’t bother with the rest of the series."

I spent the first few pages going What? What does that mean? WTFajita? It's not worth it. When you think of other novels (Harry Potter, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings) that had different worlds/words, you were transported with the words, not stopped in the middle to figure out what the heck did she mean. IMO

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Jessica

High Hopes; Poor Execution

Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2019

*I received an eARC of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.

Looking back on my time spent reading this book, the thing that sticks out most to me is how much it dragged. I was intrigued by the story but I think it took too long describing things for me to fully engage myself in the book. I also don't find myself compelled to want to read this series further and see where the characters end up. I'm very sad as I had high hopes after reading the synopsis.

2 people found this helpful

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Katelyn Beane

Disappointed

Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2020

I was so excited for this book. But was massively disappointed.

Pros:
Bad*** female heroine, who protects and takes care of her entire town. Yay female empowerment!
Diverse cast of characters.
Complex sibling relationship

Cons:
Diverse cast of characters really didn't get much focus. Bummer!
Overall, plot was kind of weak.
Surprise twists were weak and easily saw them coming.

One person found this helpful

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Melissa 'Dog/Wolf Lover'Top Contributor: Fantasy Books

Sad 😕

Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2019

I got this book in one of my book subscriptions and was soo happy. I love this book cover and I thought the summary sounded so good. Unfortunately, the story itself just wasn’t for me. I would recommend you read it yourself and make your own discussion.

Happy Reading!

Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾

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