Rebel Of The Sands

Rating

4 stars

Date Read

11/4/16 - 13/4/16

Age Group

14+

General Thoughts

Awesome awesome book!!!

A rebel prince. Djinn and their daughters. Galan armies and Mirajin soldiers. A secret weapon, a silent war brewing...

Travel to the ends of the world, to the middle of the desert. To faraway kingdoms that speak of Arabian nights and scathing sun, and sands, sands that get stuck onto your skin and deep into your soul.

Meet a fierce, fiery Mirajin, more gunpowder than girl, and follow her as she escapes her Dusty town and crosses the desert on a magic horse with a convicted traitor.

Follow the rebellion, the fight for freedom, for a better life, for a new desert. 

And fall in love with a strong, stoic warrior and his countless secrets.

Main Characters

Amani

Amani has a fire in her. She can't hold her mouth, doesn't back down, and still has a talent for self-preservation. She is smart, impulsive and determined, and she taught herself to shoot, aiming at tin cans and glass bottles. She is witty, and smart-mouthed, which usually gets her in trouble in the male dominated she lives in. She's stubborn and independent, she dreams of a better life and clings to that idea to get herself through tough times, doesn't give up, doesn't settle.

She fights, a gun in hand, sand on her skin, clear sky in her eyes.

A desert girl.

Jin

Hmm.... Smart, strong, doesn't talk much. Has traveled the world, has seen far off kingdoms, sailed the sea, squared off with the desert. He doesn't believe in many things, doesn't trust many stories, is not inspired by vague ideas and vaguer values. But what he does believ in he fights for, with heart and soul. Fiercely loyal, doesn't care easily but never gives up on the few people that have made it into his heart. Treats Amani like an equal and doesn't think she's simple just because she's a girl. Her spirit amuses him, instead of annoying him, and maybe he even falls a little bit in love with it, with this girl that is the desert incarnate and can shoot better than him. Miraji didn't feel worth fighting until he got to know it in this girl.

Writing & Narrating

When I saw that the author was paler than me I had a hard time believing it. Granted, I've never been to the Middle East, or any East for that matter, but while reading I could feel the heat and the sun and the sand in my eyes, the Arabian . I could feel how ingrained into the heroin all that was, a part of her.

Amani's voice is clear and determined. She's never a hypocrite, never pretends, doesn't act like she's better than anyone, doesn't try to be. And yet she's dead set on leaving that beat up town, making a life for herself, escaping her uncle. Because something drives her to leave, drives her to believe that anything would be better than this and that she could -no, should- fight for that.

She had no qualms drugging her travelling companion and stealing his horse to get her where she wants to go, which caught me by surprise because it wasn't that she was exactly insensitive. She just wasn't accustomed to having a partner in crime, to relying on someone else to have her back.

She is a walking contradiction: she manages to be simultaneously smart and snobbish and humble, she's a fighter and a dreamer with her feet firmly on the ground. She wasn't educated, she has grown up alone, in the sand, has seen nothing in her whole life than that little patch of desert she calls home. And all that was clear in her voice, and yet, although she's at times naive (but not unjustifiably, she was way out of her element), she makes smart decisions and, through the book, matures and learns to trust band love and lean on other people. she learns to feel like part of something bigger.

And fight for that.

It was a delight to have her as a narrator.

All in all

Awesome, read it in two days, the kind of book you devour in a sitting and then spend months falling back into, into that journey in the endless desert with the merciless sultan and the magic in its heart. Perfect for fans of Sabaa Tahir!

Songs Out of my head john newman

XOXO

Aggie Pearson