Enthralling story

The story is fantastic, very immersive and the world building is phenomenal. At times hard to follow - had to rewind several times - would work better as a book rather than audio book. The different recordings for the Arabic words was initially annoying (one of the other reviews that made me wary of purchasing) but Y did not detract from enjoyment as you quickly get used to it.

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Loved it but at some points the narration faltered

Nothing super revolutionary in terms of plot points, but I was really engrossed in this story. A solid YA book with good world building and I loved the mixed language elements. A great book to escape in during lockdown. It was just what I was looking for.

What let it down was at some points was the narration seemed rerecorded, or the levels weren't mixed correctly as it was loud then a bit quieter. At one point, I wondered if Zafira had a different speaking voice actor to the narrator of her chapters in the beginning. Nope, just poor sound mixing. But it was fine after the beginning of the book. Also, Altair's name pronunciation at the end changed for some reason during Zafira's chapters. Even within the chapter it would be pronounced two ways, and I briefly considered if I had missed a character. Again, nope... same guy. But honestly, the story was compelling, so the narration inconsistencies weren't the end of the world for me. The Nasir's narration was great throughout, and I really did like Zafira's narrator's voice- it was just at times an inconsistent performance.

Sort of Spoiler:
The only part of the story that really irked me was the character Dean. Dean was a pointless character. I enjoyed the ice cream moment but that could have just as easily been Lana or Jasmine. Or maybe I wouldn't have minded him if he had stayed home. I get he's going to be a plot motivation/ driver for whatever happens in the next book in the series, but he just felt forced, bland and flat as a character and wholly unnecessary to the plot of this book.

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AI narration ?

You know this is probably one of the best titles I have ever encountered.
The story is rich with plot and well scripted characters, I like the lore too.

****The narration is so disappointing and a massive put off. A few times I thought it might be an AI reading it, the “narrators” both seem to struggle pronouncing names and places and sometimes it sounds as though the names and places are pre recorded and Inserted. Terrible narration consistently. What a shame to do such a dishonour to a grand story.****

Overall I’ve really enjoyed it and will definitely be having another listen soon to see what makes more sense a second time round.

Can recommend it .

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The plot twists and closer to the end it started to pick up. Loved the world building and the use of arabic.

it was quite slow to begin and the terms in the book made me confused but later the plot twist made me hooked. also the cliffhangers (multiple) at the end makes me want to continue with this series.

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Good book, God-Awful voice acting.

I absolutely loved the story, all the characters and the interesting world that the story takes place. BUT oh my gosh the female voice actor was so shite. For some reason whenever she said characters names it sounded like the clip was from somewhere else and had been pasted in and it was SO distracting. The dude was alright though and he made the characters sound interesting so he gets two 1/2 stars and the woman gets 1/2 a star for her ability to read.

I would recommend this book but i would not buy it as an audiobook here for the full price. hope that helped besties xoxo

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2 people found this helpful

Brilliant

I absolutely loved this story!

Audio : I don't really get the reviews about the audio being bad. I really liked the audio (same guy who narrated Strange the Dreamer) and although it always takes adjusting listening to different narrators when you change books, I have heard much, much worse. Sometimes it was a little confusing whether someone was thinking something or saying it, but otherwise I thought they did a great job and I'd say I'm quite fussy about audiobook narrators.

The actual Review: The book itself is amazing. The story telling, the plot, the characters. I laughed and I cried and I listened to it in one day.

The only upsetting thing for me was that I couldn't listen to the second straight away! I ordered the physical book 2 immediately (as apparently Faizal doesn't prep the reader about the first book in the second book) , but I'm just in one of those reading funks where I need to lie back and listen to an audiobook. I know other countries have it... so please Audible - bring it to the UK soon!

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Story picks up eventually into something cool

One particularly odd narration issue in one chapter (name pronunciations are off but it returns to normal eventually) aside, the multi character narration style bought this book to life for me when I had been struggling with the written copy, and the plot eventually got going into something really interesting and gripping after a slow 2nd quarter. I would love to read on, but ' We Free the Stars' (book 2) is not available on audible.

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Female narrator makes a lot of errors

This book is amazing. I did already read it once before listening to the audio book. West's performance is good, but Hardingham's is embarrassingly full of errors. Saying the wrong words and such. The audio feels chopped and edited in some places; they probably had to go back to repair her errors, but still missed quite a few. I don't know. Disappointing performance for such an amazing book; it deserves better. I also wish the narrators spoke Arabic, so that we could get true pronunciation of the Arabic words in this book, as opposed to the English-ification we're getting. It kind of ruins the bilingual, multicultural vibe of this book, that I love so much. Oh well. Guess that'd be too much to ask for...

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GRACEFUL THEME

Pros:

-Very lovable characters
-Great character development
-Really enjoyed descriptions of emotions (very poetic)

Improvements:

-I often found it difficult to place myself in the story. for example understanding where certain conversations are happening and would love more of a description of where on Shah they were.

-I didn't understand the destruction and darkness (being a good thing) theme all that well. (maybe this just me)

Conclusion:

Really great read! would definitely recommend this to a friend. But needs better scene descriptions (general description was great, would just get lost sometimes)

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Great story - not so great audio

The story is really compelling and interesting, but the edits of lines being reread out loud are very obvious, and distract from truly being submerged into the story.

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