We hunt the flame by Hafsah Faizal (review!)

Title: We hunt the flame (sands of Arawiya #1).

Author: Hafsah Faizal.

Format: Hardcover.

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Page count: 369.

Release day: May 14^th 2019.

Genre: YA, fantasy.

Rating: 3.5 stars.

What is it about? (Summary from GoodReads)

People lived because she killed.
People died because he lived.

Zafira is the Hunter, disguising herself as a man when she braves the cursed forest of the Arz to feed her people. Nasir is the Prince of Death, assassinating those foolish enough to defy his autocratic father, the king. If Zafira was exposed as a girl, all of her achievements would be rejected; if Nasir displayed his compassion, his father would punish him in the most brutal of ways.

Both are legends in the kingdom of Arawiya—but neither wants to be.

War is brewing, and the Arz sweeps closer with each passing day, engulfing the land in shadow. When Zafira embarks on a quest to uncover a lost artifact that can restore magic to her suffering world and stop the Arz, Nasir is sent by the king on a similar mission: retrieve the artifact and kill the Hunter. But an ancient evil stirs as their journey unfolds—and the prize they seek may pose a threat greater than either can imagine.

Set in a richly detailed world inspired by ancient Arabia, We Hunt the Flame is a gripping debut of discovery, conquering fear, and taking identity into your own hands.

Rating:
Characters: 7/10
Atmosphere: 7/10
Writing: 6/10
Plot: 6/10
Intrigue: 6/10
Logic: 6/10
Enjoyment: 6/10
Average: 6.29 (which means 3 stars!)

My thoughts:

I’m having a hard time getting my thoughts together for this book. Because I really did enjoy the story but I had quite a hard time reading it.

I think I just really did not connect with the writing style. I just found myself rereading sentences a lot because I just didn’t understand them the first time. I especially struggled with this for the first 50 pages, since here we get introduced to our main characters and to this whole new world. But since I struggled with the writing, it took me so long to understand the world!

Throughout the whole book, and especially in the beginning I found myself flipping back to the map a lot. I got so confused about who was coming from where and where that was in relation to other places. Also they kept talking about the Arz, and I it was not on the map?! Later I realized it is there, but just not labelled, which I think is weird.

This world used to have magic, and the goal of our characters is to get it back! And I love how we slowly learn more about the magic together with our characters throughout the book!

I really liked both of our main characters and the side characters. Especially the banter and the sass between all of them! I think Altair might be my favourite!

I liked that the romance in this book was really slow, and pretty on the background. Like it was not the main thing about the book, and the main thing didn’t lose its importance because of the romance, I hate it when that happens!

There were so many twists and turns in the end of the book, and I don’t think I saw any of them coming! But I do have to admit that I got confused by some, and again this was coming from the writing..

So the main reason why most of the parts of this book got a 6/10 rating is because I was just a bit confused by the writing.

But honestly this is a really good book! It has great characters, the world is very interesting and the magic system is very intriguing!

I’m definitely interested in reading the sequel/conclusion once it releases in 2021.

Have you read this book? What did you think?