We Free the Stars by Hafsah Faizal

 

*This review will contain spoilers for the first book in this duology, We Hunt the Flame*

After finishing We Hunt the Flame last week, I decided to go ahead and finish off Hafsah Faizal's duology with We Free the Stars. I had mixed feelings about the first book. I liked it well enough, but wasn't blown away by it. In light of that, I didn't go into my reading with super-high expectations. I was still interested enough to find out how Zafira and Nasir's stories would end though, so I started off my reading hopeful for a satisfying conclusion to their story.

The plot of the novel picks up right after the events of book one. Zafira and Nasir have teamed up and partially completed their mission to restore magic to Arawiya. They have retrieved most of the special items they need, as well as the magical book that contains the instructions they need to do it. Unfortunately, the Lion of the Night is still alive and is determined to foil their plans and take control of the entire kingdom. Zafira and Nasir must work together to prevent him from taking the throne and finish their quest to bring magic back to their people before it slips away forever. 

Sadly, I did not have a great time with this book. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was bad, but it was definitely inferior to the first in the series. It still had some high points, of course. Faizal's writing was very pretty, the Middle Eastern elements were still interesting, and there was definitely chemistry between Zafira and Nasir. The emotions running throughout the story felt genuine too. The characters struggled with trauma and grief in relatable ways. All that was fine. It wasn't enough, however, to make up for the pacing. This was nearly 600 pages long, and it felt like it was dragging for most of that time to me. The plot was very repetitive throughout most of the book, then very rushed in the final few pages. Not enough happened and then way too much happened in a very short time. There were a lot of scenes consisting of characters having conversations about their thoughts and emotions that did not further the plot and felt unnecessary. Zafira was indecisive to the point of madness, going back and forth on decisions constantly. It became annoying, and I'm so sorry to have felt that way, because I enjoyed her character quite a bit in book one. 

The relationship between Zafira and Nasir felt stagnated for a lot of this book as well. I know that Faizal was going for a whole slow burn will-they-or-won't-they kind of thing, and this was effective in the first book, but it got to a point here where it was too much. There was no real reason for them not to be together, so their reluctance and self-sabotage didn't make sense. There were a few kisses here and there, and lots of sexual banter between them, but then one of them would almost immediately say the wrong thing or run away and it was frustrating in a bad way. Honestly, nothing about their relationship ended up being satisfying for me. Even the ending left me wanting a lot more. However, I did laugh uproariously when Nasir got an erection once while riding a horse with Zafira and to disguise it, he immediately jumped off the horse and picked a fight with her. That was hilarious, but I don't think it was really supposed to be.

While I'm here, I want to elaborate more on the sexual banter. It was very present in the story, between many of the characters. It was relentless and not very funny. I'm not coming at that from a pearl-clutching place. It was just cringey. There seemed to be no thought about which characters were speaking to each other when it was happening either. Nasir and his half brother kept up a line of joking that felt extremely uncomfortable. Before it was revealed in book one that these two were related, I thought that one was secretly in love with the other. Now, to be fair, Nasir didn't know this guy was his half brother throughout part of book one. Once he does know, however, the jokes don't stop. This kind of humor felt really out of step with the rest of the story--like it was an attempt to make the characters seem cool and edgy, and it didn't work for me.

One other small thing that irked me was the fact that the characters kept saying, "We freed the stars." Usually when you're going to have a character say the title of the book, you just have someone say it one time. It was said multiple times here by different characters, and as it's purely a metaphorical statement, it was cheesy as heck. 

So obviously, I was disappointed with We Free the Stars. I am definitely in the minority here. Most people on Goodreads absolutely love this book, and it's great that so many were able to connect with it. I knew after book one that this series didn't click with me, and that feeling only deepened throughout this final book. It's okay though, not every reader is going to love every story they pick up. I'm still glad to have given this duology a try. I'll add these to my donate pile and hopefully a reader better suited for them will discover them.

Challenge Tally

Finally in 2022 - Series Edition: 30/28 - Finished!

Total Books Read in 2022: 68