WE HUNT THE FLAME
by Hafsah Faizal
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
May 14, 2019
From Goodreads:
People lived because she killed.
People died because he lived.
Zafira is the Hunter, disguising herself as a man when she braves the cursed forest of the Arz to feed her people. Nasir is the Prince of Death, assassinating those foolish enough to defy his autocratic father, the king. If Zafira was exposed as a girl, all of her achievements would be rejected; if Nasir displayed his compassion, his father would punish him in the most brutal of ways.
Both are legends in the kingdom of Arawiya—but neither wants to be.
War is brewing, and the Arz sweeps closer with each passing day, engulfing the land in shadow. When Zafira embarks on a quest to uncover a lost artifact that can restore magic to her suffering world and stop the Arz, Nasir is sent by the king on a similar mission: retrieve the artifact and kill the Hunter. But an ancient evil stirs as their journey unfolds—and the prize they seek may pose a threat greater than either can imagine.
The good people at Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Raincoast Books provided me with an ARC of We Hunt the Flame in exchange for a fair and honest review.
I really wanted to like this. It sounds great when reading the blurb and then you get into the book and it’s just not there.
The pace was m, by far, the bigger issue. It took a long, long time for the story to get going. Many of the early chapters could have been axed and not only would the book not suffer for it, it would thrive.
Beyond that, a lot of time was spent on the inconsequential, and then when something important or exciting popped up it was over before it started. The things I didn’t care about got chapters of coverage while the things I wanted were left out in the cold.
The characters were well thought out and interesting on the surface, but as the story moved forward most of them came off as false. They did things that seemed very unlikely for their personality type or habits. Of course that happens a lot in books, but we’re normally shown reason for it. In this case, the characters seem to turn on their own nature with no rhyme or reason other than to move the story forward.
Deus ex machina. Not in its truest sense, but characters seem to sprout new abilities at the damnedest times! This kind of thing isn’t a big deal when hinted at, or the possibility put into our heads. Imagine watching the Matrix and the possibility of Neo being “the one” isn’t addressed until that final scene in the movie. A lot of us would have been very confused, upset, or both.
Despite some solid world-building and initial characters, this one didn’t hit for me. As excited as I was for this one, I’m kind of hoping I’m part of the minority this one.
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