Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton (2016)

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I’m honestly going to struggle just writing a synopsis for Rebel of the Sands, because it was honestly so boring. But, here goes nothing. After both her parents died from an unfortunate situation, Amani has been left with her uncle and abusive aunt, who plan to marry her off as soon as possible. Amani definitely doesn’t want to get married, especially if it means she’ll be stuck in the small town in the middle of the desert that she lives in now. The only thing that will help her get out: her skills with a gun. So, she scrapes up whatever money she can for a competition, which ends explosively. The next day, when the army comes looking for the person responsible, the guilty comes knocking at her door, needing a place to hid. On a leap of faith, Amani hides him, and he offers her the deal of lifetime. Run away with him, and he’ll get her to the biggest city of the land. Sounding fairly simple, she takes it, but she get’s a lot more than she bargained for.
Wow. That synopsis was actually painful. Needless to say, I really, really did not like this book. I had really high hopes for it, since it has a fair amount of praise, and even just one a Goodreads Choice Award. So, some people must like it. And, I guess at some points I did too. There just wasn’t enough good points.
Rebel of the Sands is a hybrid, culturally wise. Amani’s society reflects one of the Middle East, tying into the arranged marriages. Every character also wore fairly conservative clothing, and there was a backdrop of an environment that would typically be found in the Middle East. Infused in that concept was Western culture. Basically, there was extremely high usage of guns in the world, which was pretty straightforward. What wasn’t straightforward was the fantasy elements. I felt that the setup and explanation for the fantasy was confusing, and that the magic came out of nowhere for a character, throwing off the story. It also felt like it was really forced, like Alwyn Hamilton was trying super hard to make the magic work.
Another big problem for me was the plot itself. Right away, the book opens mid-scene, and leaves the reader confused for a good bit until information is eventually given to them. From then on, the book is non-stop action, but at the same time was incredibly boring. This book is already on the shorter side for a novel, and the only way so much could’ve happened is if each scene, no matter how big or small, lasted for a very short time. Because of that, I never got the full view of the scene, and only got half bits of it. After a while, that got pretty boring. I also wasn’t a fan of Amani, the main character. She felt like the cardboard cutout of a heroine, and honestly there’s nothing I really remember about her. Her romance with Jin (the guy who takes  her away) , did not impress me in any way, and felt like the only romance their romance existed was for the sake of having romance in the story.
As I’ve stated before, I did not enjoy Rebel of the Sands (at all), and I will not be reading the rest of the series. However, this was Alwyn Hamilton’s first book, so there is room for improvement with her new books.
1 Star

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