Reviews with content warning for Emotional abuse - We Free the Stars

Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

We Free the Stars by Hafsah Faizal

35 reviews

sydapel's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

wowzers this book was LONG. It's so intricately done, and the characters really are given their time to shine here, but a lot of the plot intricacies I felt I should have understood completely flew over my head. Though I don't believe that the length was justified and I felt only minorly satisfied at the conclusion (just let Zafira and Nasir have ONE cute moment I'm BEGGING you), it gets a high rating bc there just aren't enough epic fantasy stories out there that capture the lore and culture of the Middle East like this does.

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maeverose's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? Yes

3.0

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kinsportch's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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sam_crl's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I don’t even know how to begin. This book was beautiful. It was soul-shattering and beautiful. I seriously did not think this series could get any better from the first book but well, I was proven wrong.
Hafsah Faizal spins such a breathtaking story that you never want to leave. And I loved how these characters weren‘t your usual heroes, they weren‘t without flaws, they had their fair share of them, but yet you couldn’t help but fall in love with every single one of them because they didn’t seem like just some characters in a story, they were real, complex beings with their own struggles and demons to overcome. The zumra will forever have a special place in my heart.
Seriously, if you haven’t read this yet, this is your sign. It is now one of my favorite series of all time (that list is increasing steadily) and that‘s coming from someone who‘s not a big fan of the enemies to lovers trope! But in this, the love story just seemed so incredibly real and honest and the slowburn was slowly unaliving me but that‘s okay. Also, there are rarely occasions where I think, "Ugh, men," in a good way, but while reading this? It just shows that fictional men written by women are simply superior.
If you‘ve made it to the end of this very long review (sorry, the book was just so good), congratulations!
Now read the book.

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lesliehirgelt's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

In my (humble) opinion, this book is the better of the two in the duology. I reread the duology immediately after finishing it the first time, and my first read-through of this book gave me all the feels. I was particularly moved by Nasir's character development and the story of everything he went through and overcame. I bought We Hunt the Flame in Kindle format with a gift card, kind of on a whim after seeing a TikTok from Hafsah Faizal, and I bought this one, too, immediately after I finished We Hunt the Flame the first time. I think she did a fantastic job limiting these characters' stories to a duology, wrapping everything up and kind of tying it off with a neat little bow (although I really feel like she was setting up a spin-off for two particular characters). But Nasir...his story broke my heart over and over, and I loved his growth and development. Zafira is a well-developed character, too, but the author did an amazing job with Nasir.

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christalbotheindl's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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silentquercus's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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deluna's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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riley_ratatat's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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bisexualwentworth's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book was an incredibly satisfying conclusion to the duology. The stakes were just high enough. The themes of grief and social change and reconciling the past with the future were executed brilliantly. The main characters all got the perfect ending. I especially loved what this book did with Nasir and Altair’s relationship and how it played into the directions they took at the end of the book.

Zafira and Yasmine’s friendship also went in some heartbreaking and realistic directions. They had to learn to navigate change and betrayal and figure out who they were able to be for each other in the future. It was lovely.

And I love Kifah. Just in general. She’s wonderful. I also think that she comes out as ace/aro in this book, but I had to read the page three times to confirm what was going on, and I’m still not totally sure that’s what was intended.

A lot of side characters also got some very nice bits of development in this book.

I was deeply frustrated by the romantic subplot at a lot of points in this book, mostly for personal taste reasons. They just spend far too much time refusing to communicate with each other, which makes sense for their characters, but I do find it a little bit silly that they both spend so much time thinking about how perfectly they understand each other but they don’t talk to each other for about three hundred pages. When they finally DO communicate, though, the payoff is worth it. I just didn’t feel as invested in their relationship in this book as in We Hunt the Flame even though it was much more of a focus here.

I think my main issue with this book is the pacing. It REALLY drags for a whole long section and then picks up again very gradually, and then the ending is very fast-paced and the climax and resolution happen pretty quickly.

Overall, I would absolutely recommend this duology to anyone looking for a mature YA fantasy (mature as in characters are older than in most YA and there are some complex themes but the content is very much PG-13) with intricate worldbuilding, a unique take on magic, an extremely compelling found family, and an enemies-to-lovers romance.

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