Diversifty Yourself: Ahdieh crafts an electrifying sequel

Serena Bettis • May 11, 2016

20160511_192454 — An Advanced Reader’s Copy of The Rose and the Dagger by Renee Ahdieh. Photo Credit: Serena Bettis

Renee Ahdieh’s The Rose and the Dagger, the electrifying sequel to The Wrath and the Dawn has left me caught in a world of magic and caliphates – one that I almost don’t want to leave. Filled with even more action than the first, The Rose and the Dagger is a thrilling, heart-stopping ride. Shahrzad is back and more determined than ever as she works to break Khalid’s curse and stop the war looming over Khorasan. Featuring more points of view, this sequel gives a deeper look into many mysteries presented in the first book.

I really enjoyed all the action contained in this book. Whereas the first was mostly a mental game revolving around Shahrzad’s initial goal of murdering Khalid and discovering his secrets, The Rose and the Dagger is full of fight scenes, suspense, and thrilling travels. Shahrzad discovers new powers and even a flying carpet that can take her hundreds of miles away from her homeland to a dangerous place that might solve all her problems. While she looks for answers and attempts to shield herself from her sister’s prying eyes, the people around her are preparing for war.

The character development that happens here is amazing. Shahrzad continues to be unwaveringly stubborn, but she begins to be more open with her sister near the end of the novel. I loved seeing timid characters, people I could not really remember because of their lack of significance in the first novel, turn into strong, fierce young women that eventually save the day. Khalid also learns to be more accepting of others, and is more willing to show people different sides of himself.

This book provides a drug-free escape from reality. The action and plot development beautifully intertwines with vivid details of the character’s surroundings and feelings – so much so that reading this makes it truly feel like a movie is playing in your head. Moreover, it’s a movie that is incredibly captivating, one that you wouldn’t want to be checking your phone during because then you would miss out on the greatness. If possible, it’s extremely easy to forget what time it is when reading this and soon realize that the book is nearly over, it’s that good.

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Despite my love of the novel, some of the things I found endearing when reading the first book didn’t feel like they fit as well for this one. Shahrzad’s thoughts, in first person, are often put in italics because the rest of the book is written in third person, and they felt more awkward and out of place than appealing. Maybe that was because they worked better when Shahrzad was mostly alone and plotting something, but either way it irked me. There was also some storytelling elements in this novel, where one character would explain an old tale to try to prove a point, which I enjoyed very much when reading The Wrath and the Dawn, but during this novel, I only wanted to move on with plot, not hear about a fictitious tale inside a work of fiction.

The Rose and the Dagger did, however, prove to be worthy of my love, and I am thankful that it did not fall into the trap of bad sequels. Even with an epilogue set about five years later, I am almost thirsting for more adventures with these characters. Ahdieh brings the right amount of romance mixed with fantasy that nearly anyone could enjoy. If you read the first book and only sort of liked it, I would highly suggest reading this as well, as it is even more exciting than the first.

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About the Contributor

Serena Bettis, Editor-in-Chief

Serena Bettis, senior, is entering into her third year on the Etched in Stone staff as this year’s Editor-in-Chief. A four year journalism student, she has high hopes for Etched in Stone this school year, and wants to be able to guide the staff in achieving their goals as much as possible. While Bettis has become a much more outspoken person than she was when she started at Fossil Ridge High School, she still finds discomfort speaking in front of large groups of people (“large” being defined anywhere from 6 to 30), but is more than ready to grow in that aspect of leadership over the course of the year. Most of her journalistic goals for the year are not personal, but rather involve the entire program. She aims to further improve upon the look of the Etched in Stone website, which she spent countless hours on her junior year, enough for it to win awards before she graduates.

Aside from Etched in Stone, Bettis takes part in the school marching, jazz, and concert bands as a flute player, volunteers with Key Club, and is the Historian for the National Honor Society. She has also held a part-time job at TCBY for over a year, and now knows more than she needs to about the sugar content in frozen yogurt. In her spare time, which is often hard to come by, Bettis can be found reading for fun, lamenting about how none of the new Young Adult romance novels she used to love so much are good anymore, working on making the perfect French macaron, or binge watching her recent addiction, Game of Thrones. Music is a large part of her life, and her favorite genre is difficult to describe because she listens to many different bands. Some of her favorites include twenty one pilots, All Time Low, and Halsey, more alternative bands such as Issues and SWMRS, pop artists including Carly Rae Jepsen (“she’s so much more than “Call Me Maybe””), and Little Mix, and various songs by Spanish singers.

She is more than ready for graduation, and aspires to be attending college in Chicago by this time next year. Bettis knows that she wants to double major in journalism and foreign languages, with a potential minor in music, though she is undecided on what specific occupation she wants after college. Her best advice to someone who does not know what they are interested in is to simply join different activities and see what happens from there. “Eventually, sometime during sophomore year, journalism became the only class I wanted to go to, and even now I love it more than I used to love band, so that’s when it hit me that this was what I wanted to be involved in for most of my life,” she said. Another somewhat undecided goal of hers is to join the Peace Corps either during or after college, and she hopes that an experience in a different country with complete strangers might help her figure out what exactly she wants to do with her life.