I am officially in the longest reading slump ever. It’s been months. I’m dying.

Because of this awful reading slump, I wasn’t able to finish reading my ARC of We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizel by it’s release day. That said, I still want to talk about it, so now I will.

I’m about 100 pages in, and I want to go over some of my initial thoughts, first impressions, and predictions.

(Don’t worry, I’ll keep it spoiler free!)

Okay, onto the… well I can’t say review… impression? thoughts? Let’s just get started.

Stats

Title: We Hunt The Flame
Series: Sands of Arawiya (#1/2)
Author: Hafsah Faizal
Genre: YA Fantasy
Publisher: Macmillan (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Page Count: 480 pages
Release Date: 5/14/2019

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

Thoughts

I’m absolutely loving this book so far. I’m only a hundred pages in right now, so there’s plenty of time for this to change, but so far, it’s amazing.

But before I start gushing about how much I love it, I want to talk about what I’m not loving.

The Bad:

My only complaint here is just pacing. It’s a little slow. We’re clearly setting the board for a fun and fascinating story, but it’s taking some time to set up. I’m so excited to see where this is going to go, but these first hundred pages drag a little bit while you learn about this world and these characters.

The Good:

Okay now time to fangirl.

Man, this book is good.

First there’s the writing. Hafsah Faizal may be a debut author but her writing doesn’t feel like it. It’s beautiful and fun and just perfect for this world that she’s built.

Speaking of the world… this world is amazing. Seriously. It’s inspired by ancient Arabia, and it’s so unique and well developed. I’m really loving that YA Fantasy is branching away from the typical medieval England-type fantasies and putting a spotlight on so many other cultures that were previously ignored.

However, my favorite part of this book has to be the characters. I’m still learning so much about them but I’m really adoring them so far. Nasir has already stolen my heart. I’m just going to predict that Altair will be one of my favorites. He’s just so entertaining and fun. Zafira is such a strong main character and I can’t wait to get to know her more. Yasmine and Deen are both so great, and I love their relationships with Zafira so much.

Honestly, I’m just so excited to spend another ~400 pages with these characters!

Predictions

Since I’m still in the beginning of this book, I want to see if I can predict how I’ll be feeling by the end. I don’t want to try and predict the plot, because I don’t want to accidentally spoil anything, plus I doubt it would be interesting for you if you haven’t already read this. So here are my predictions for my reaction after I read it:

• This will definitely be in my favorites list for the first half of 2019, if not all of 2019
• I will be obsessed with these characters. Especially Nasir, Altair, and Zafira.
• I just have a feeling this books ending will hurt me. Knowing that this is a series, and seeing how attached I am to these characters already… I’m scared.

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And those are my current thoughts on We Hunt The Flame! I’m hoping to still write a review once I finish reading, but I really wanted to get a post out for it’s book birthday!

What do you guys think of this format? Since I’m in a reading slump, doing 2 reviews a week is kinda hard, but I still want to keep posting content. If this is something you guys like, I might start doing this more often instead of just posting nothing or forcing myself to write a quick (not very good) review.

Are you planning on reading We Hunt The Flame? What are you currently reading now??