Thank you so much Penguin Random
House USA for sending me a copy of this book! I’m so grateful for having the
chance to work with this amazing publisher.
Synopsis:
No one is entirely certain what brings the Emperor Sikander to Shalingar. Until now, the idyllic kingdom has been immune to his many violent conquests. To keep the visit friendly, Princess Amrita has offered herself as his bride, sacrificing everything—family, her childhood love, and her freedom—to save her people. But her offer isn’t enough. The palace is soon under siege, and Amrita finds herself a fugitive, utterly alone but for an oracle named Thala, who was kept by Sikander as a slave and managed to escape amid the chaos. With nothing and no one else to turn to, Amrita and Thala are forced to rely on each other. But while Amrita feels responsible for her kingdom and sets out to warn her people, the newly free Thala has no such ties. She encourages Amrita to go on a quest to find the fabled Library of All Things, where it is possible for each of them to reverse their fates. To go back to before Sikander took everything from them. Stripped of all that she loves, caught between her rosy past and an unknown future, will Amrita be able to restore what was lost, or does another life—and another love—await?
Review:
The Library of Fates is an amazing
book if you’re looking for a cultural experience. I must be honest, besides Aladdin (maybe), I don’t think I’ve ever
read a book about Arab culture, and I wasn’t expecting this story to be so
educating so it was a really nice surprise.
Maybe those stories did more harm than good by giving us false hope. All they did was reinforce our faith that the world was once made up almost entirely of magic or miracles. But where was that magic now, when we needed it?
First 10 pages, amazing. Honestly,
such good stories and quotes that make you reflect upon your decisions in life
and how incredibly idiotic humans are. But then…it continues.
Without trying to be mean, this
story has everything to be great except for the execution. As a standalone, The Library of Fates, should start and
end on itself and while that is the case, the reader is left with many loose
ends
~ tiny spoiler ~
Where is Amrita mother? What
happened to her when Chandradev run? How can someone who didn’t exist change
everyone’s destiny? What happened to those people in the mountain? Where did
they go?
~ end of tiny spoiler ~
Working with time travel is always
hard, one must consider too many aspects for it to be perfect, unfortunately,
as reader that values plot lines, I found too many holes in this one.
One thing I enjoyed immensely was
Amrita’s and Thala’s friendship, it’s pre-existent but rather bit slowly over
time and as trust builds so does their love for each other. It was nice to see
a book where the main ‘’couple’’ were two girls who were not romantically
incline towards one another, in many of the ‘’more recent’’ books, authors seem
to feel the need to add romance as the main topic (totally guilty of this one
as well) and leave friendship and family as second plane.
I will finish by recommending this
to anyone looking for a different book, not because of the amazing story line
or well-built characters (I think this book is not a good example of that) but
because you want to read more about other cultures, be diverse! Don’t stick
without what you know and are familiar. It will be hard at first – I got really
confused with many terms – but it will give you an amazing experience on the
skin of one that, maybe, doesn’t think quite like you.
Rating: 3 stars
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