My Thoughts: The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

5 wonderful, warm chocolate chip cookies dunked in milk.

Cover Love:
Yes!  The cover is what drew my eyes to the book and that is without even seeing it in person.  I have seen pictures online of the actual book and the cover and I believe it is more gorgeous in person!

Why I Wanted to Read This:
The cover caught my attention, the title piqued my interest and the synopsis put me over the edge.  Here is it from GoodReads:

Every dawn brings horror to a different family in a land ruled by a killer. Khalid, the eighteen-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 sixteen-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.

Romance?: Yes, yes, yes!!

My Thoughts:
First of all, this was so gorgeously written, so descriptive, so transportative (I am sure that is not a word).  You absolutely felt like you were in the palace. You could smell the smells, taste the food, see the beautiful clothes and FEEL THE HEAT between Shahrzad and Khalid.  It is intense.

I did have a little hard time at the start keeping people and their plot lines straight, but by the end it had all snapped into focus.  By halfway into the book I was not able to put it down and have two late nights of reading to attest to that fact.

I loved Shahrzad, she didn't let her hatred totally cloud who she was.  Yes, she went there with a purpose and for most of the book really wanted to follow through with that, but she did let herself discover and question things.

I am SO glad the author wrote chapters from Khalid's point of view.  He was so aloof and uncaring (as he really needed to be) it was hard to get a grasp on who he was until later in the book.  The chapters from his point of view were awesome but also how as we learned more about him, so did Shahrzad so that eventually each of their chapters were very similar. 

The reasons behind why Khalid needs to kill his brides and what he does to try and relieve a tiny little bit of his guilt are both heartbreaking reveals. 

One other thing I liked was how trusting of each other Shahrzad and Khalid (and Jalal) became.  Every action was not looked at with suspicion.  There was a lot of love there and the author did a wonderful job showing them falling in love, fighting it, and then being in love.  I was so glad there was none of the old misunderstanding leads to hurt and break ups, leads to etc... that YA novels tend to do.  This was a more mature relationship once they got into being in a relationship.

UGH!! If I knew there was going to be a book 2 I might not have started this one because I want to read it NOW!!

To Sum Up:  I don't think you will be disappointed in this book, it's just gorgeous and intriguing and romantic.

eGalley requested and received from Penguin via Edleweiss.