When you think that nothing could go worse, you’ll be proven wrong many many times. This last book kept me on the edge of my sit from page 1 to the end. She’s basically the chosen one and I couldn’t be happier that she had such a role in the Rebellion. In this book she’s the main character through and through. I can’t believe how much Amani has grown as well. Not one time was I let down (except again when the author was so cruel with my precious characters *cries*). I’ll miss everybody so freaking much! I started reading this series in 2015 and I’ve loved it ever since. Now I probably really need to sit in a corner and cry of both sadness and joy. I’ve lost the ability to produce proper sentences. In my review I have spoilers under tags but not in comments as I can do nothing about those. Please don’t read the comments if you don’t want to be spoiled. For those who enjoyed this book we recommend the following: The Clockwork Angel, The Hunger Games, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Flies, Daughter of Smoke & Bones, and Shadow & Bone.If you’re considering picking this series up DO IT NOW. In this well-written saga, the topics of sexism, culture, love, politics and self-worth are touched as well giving the reader much more than they signed up for. This book goes above and beyond its label as a fantasy novel. Their relationship holds a lot of phases starting as accomplices and developing over stages into acquaintances, friends and eventually what we interp reted as a romantic one as well. Everyone in YA Book Club also had an opinion, overall a very positive and enthusiastic one, about the relationship between the main characters Amani and Jin. This novel is appealing to most young adults interested in the fantasy genre because of the fantastic creatures the story features such as d jinn, more commonly referred to as genies. Magic and politics give power to both the antagonists and protagonists of this novel.

It was agreed that politics played one of the biggest roles in the novel alongside magic, in fact the story is structured so that it is hard to tell where the two themes don’t overlap.

The novel holds the overarching themes of power, magic, romance and politics. The not-so-underlying sexism Amani faces in her day to day life adds the power of unexpected female voices in a genre that has typically only given power to male characters and awarded them the title of lead protagonist. Amani has to pretend to be a boy to succeed and follow her passions in the town of Dustwalk, which tells us a lot about the time and place this story is taking place in. The book, though quite complex and hard to follow at points, is one of few fantasy books that take place in the Middle East. Rebel of The Sands, a young adult’s fantasy novel by Alwyn Hamilton, was read by the YA Book Club this month.

Rebel of the sands book 3