Summary: Lo-Melkhiin killed three hundred girls before he came to my village, looking for a wife. When Lo-Melkhiin - a formidable king - arrives at her desert home, she knows that he will take her beautiful sister for a wife. Desperate to save her sister from certain death, she makes the ultimate sacrifice - leaving home and family behind to live with a fearful man. But it seems that a strange magic flows between her and Lo-Melkhiin, and night after night, she survives. Finding power in storytelling, the words she speaks are given strange life of their own. Little things, at first: a dress from home, a vision of her sister. But she dreams of bigger, more terrible magic: power enough to save a king ...if only she can stop her heart from falling for a monster.
Title: A Thousand Nights
Author: A.K.Johnston
Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books
Published: October 22nd 2015
Rating: Did Not Finish (DNF)
Thank-you Netgalley who sent me the eARC!
I had incredibly high expectations for this book, but unfortunately, it never delivered. At. All. It's never nice to not finish a book, is it? But sadly, some books call for it. A THOUSAND NIGHTS was one of them for me. Incredibly slow at the start, I thought that it would pick up very soon. But alas, it was not to be. By page 100 I simply could not make myself read more. Nothing convinced me that reading on was a good idea.
There was a whole host of things that put me off this book. For one thing, I don't recall the protagonist ever saying her name? Or what Lo-Melkhiin even looked like? The whole 'Lady-Bless' situation every five seconds was the most hair-pulling thing I've read so far this year. The protagonist seemed to be more than obsessed with her sister. There was probably a reason why but I ended up skimming pages every time that her sister was mentioned. Which was a lot. I just didn't dig the characters. There didn't seem to be any plot to the overwhelming amount of description.
So, in short, this book and its characters need a thousand more nights to develop.
I'm reading this now and quite enjoying it, but I agree about not knowing her name. I was thinking about that earlier, and thought I just hadn't been paying much attention.
ReplyDeleteI didn't like this one either as you well know. I'm glad we both saved ourselves with a DNF for this one. Wrath is a much better version of this. The characters and actions of this book are both pretty bad as is the story telling. Nice review!
ReplyDeleteRachel @ A Perfection Called Books