ARC from NetGalley

DNF at 24%

I don't normally like to rate books that I don't finish, but I got about 1/4 of the way through this, so I feel semi okay about it. This is a generous 2 stars for the first quarter of the book.

This is not a YA book. This is firmly middle grade. I should have suspected as much just from the map at the front of the book, which includes such gems as:
Unicorn Valley
Mount Frostbite
Mermaid Island
Phoenix Matrix
Fairy Flower Fields

Like several others, I found the cultural references and the food descriptions to be positive bubbles in this ocean of juvenility. Not enough to keep me breathing, unfortunately, as it all took place at the very beginning before things went so drastically south. The beginning of the book starts off with Nezha and her family, cultural references, food references, some dark happenings, and then we are thrust into the bosom of the Happy Little Elves. Yes, this book could use an edit or several, but it wasn't the language/grammar errors that made it unenjoyable, it was the jerky, virtually paceless happenings. We get whiplash moving from one scene to the next with absolutely no idea how much time has passed and with nearly 0 actual conflict, no character growth, no reason to GAF about what's happening, and terrible, terrible dialogue. I had to stop reading when Nezha wakes up the unicorns she is travelling with by telling one his hair was messy and the other that she is too critical. This wakes them up from a supernatural slumber imposed upon them by sprites. And why is the cat here? Why did the cat come with her through the portal to the parallel world? Has this author ever owned a cat? This cat is travelling on horseback, flying through the air, traversing the ocean in a bubble. We hear nothing from her but the odd meow. Let me tell you, I have owned my fair share of cats, some very chill, and yeah. Not realistic. I understand it's a fantasy, but it's not the unicorns and mermaids that made it difficult to suspend disbelief, it was the cat.

This author needs to pull this book and redo it almost entirely. Either make it a true middle grade book, clean up the grammar/spelling issues, work on the pacing and awful dialogue (even as a kid I would think this was juvenile), or stick with marketing it as a YA book and just set it on fire and start from scratch.

this was a lot of fun to read, it was exactly what i was looking for in this genre and I really enjoyed the characters. I look forward to more from the series and the author.

Im rating this 5 stars as I am not able to read this book at this time but from the chapter I was able to read, the story is definitely there. And beautiful work.

I have to say that, while I love concept and the Muslim representation in this book, this book did not live up to its potential. The writing was incredibly sloppy and fragmented. There's grammatical issues and typos galore, as well as a very basic mode of writing style. I know that the ARC will have its issues, but I couldn't make it through 635 pages of this. It had potential, but desperately needed some revision and copy editing.

This book had some beautiful cultural representation, and there were some interesting magical creatures that I was drawn to. But the plot felt all over the place and I did not enjoy it like I hoped I would.

Really can't get over the sloppy writing. While the cultural aspects were done with authenticity, the characters and story arc went hay-wire. Expected so much from this one.

I received an eARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

3/3.5 stars.

This has some really beautiful world building moments in it, culturally rich with fantastical creatures thrown in.

However, the plot was a little all over the place. The best way I can try to put this into perspective is - you're watching one of your favourite shows, it's gearing up to something interesting, and then the adverts come on, so you run out of the room for a snack/toilet break ect but you were a minute or two too long taking that break and when you come back you've missed a section of what's happened and you have no idea how you've got to where you're at in the episode. That's what reading this book was like throughout. Now I'm not sure if this is just something that is due to it being an eARC and perhaps it will be tweaked and tightened for the final product but at times it caused the story flow to be very confusing.

The beginning felt quite rushed and then all of a sudden we had jumped into another world and things just kept speed jumping.

I really enjoyed the mythical creatures and the magic and I feel this story has so much potential but it got a little frustrating to read.

It feels so bad to say this is an average read. Maybe I expected a lot but I do think there were discrepancies that could have been easily reformed if an extensively technical editing was attempted, and this makes me even sadder.

Let's start with the best aspects: the culture is so beautifully represented, left right and centre, that it makes me extremely happy as a person of colour; the simple writing is so easy to dive into and feels so much at home in some parts that I almost forget what's lacking. There's some interesting bits of magic, including the extraordinary creatures like unicorns and dragons, that are bound to keep you lightly engrossed.

The plot was all over the place and the voice read a lot younger than the YA it was trying to align with. At times, there's a lot of focus on what's going around and simply telling the readers what's occurring rather than letting the main character convey it through herself, and that resulted in a lack of character connectivity and loss of plot attachment. If it was intentionally written for a middle-grade tone, it would've certainly done better. This isn't to say YA characters can't be too young but it's to say this story would've worked so much better if the right demographic was considered earlier.

Also, this review that arises after reading an early copy should be received with an open likelihood of a finished copy showing immense improvements. Basically, this has so much potential and no one is more heartbroken at this opinion of mine.

After reading the book description, I was initially very interested in this book. A girl who hides her ability to conjure fire finds herself in a land of magic and an array of jinns on her tail. But there was something nagging me at the back of my mind about the description. It felt blunt, and rather uninspiring, especially, now that I look back on it. And I feel like that should've been the first warning sign.

I took on this book because of the blog tour and I was unable to write a review for this book because, frankly, I don't think I have anything good to say about it. I felt annoyed when I finished this book, irritated that I should've trusted my gut feeling instead of choosing to go ahead with my participation, in hopes that the book would redeem itself. And it didn't. Not in the slightest of bits.

The story begins with Nezha and her family in celebration. They run the family store where they sell a variety of flowers and treats for any occasion. Aware of her fire skills, her parents are quiet about her secret and Nezha feels like her aunt is the only person who truly knows her. And in the midst of a party, she hears a voice that kept saying "fire elemental," which leads to her being cornered inside a maze by djinn. Nezha's aunt is soon killed off, which was so infuriating because if you know a djinn is after you, a djinn that is aware that you have a special power, why on earth would you let your defenceless family member leave your sight?

The perspective then changes over to our main villain, Zul Sharr, an Iron prince turned djinn, who is heartbroken after losing the love of his life. He gives into a djinn called Lexa, who swears she can help him gain the power she needs. I didn't understand what was happening, I didn't even think half of the chapters we get from their POVs were even necessary. There was no distinction at all between the voices of Nezha, Zul Sharr and Lexa and the other supporting character. It felt jarring when they were all together in some chapters because it read like an absolute mess.

Nezha ends up in the magical world of Noorenia in the strangest way possible. It begins with an earthquake, which leads to her grandfather swapping bodies with his brother, who resides in Noorenia. And the grand uncle brings her to Noorenia via a pond where she is faced with two unicorns. Sounds familar? Because that is where the book's official description ends and we've barely scratched the surface of the book. (In my e-copy, I believe it wasn't even 10% into the book?) If anyone that is a part of the team that worked on this book is reading this, please, I beg someone to rewrite the book description, because it is so bad. And I'm not even saying this to be rude, I JUST WANTED THIS BOOK TO BE BETTER.

Okay, now onto the unicorns, two siblings, Sapphire and Thunderbolt. Again, two new voices with zero colour in their voices. Thunderbolt acts like an annoying child, rather pretentious and Sapphire is very lacklustre. But we are told they are important so therefore, we have to go along with it. They encounter their first enemy djinn very soon, and this is where I first got really frustrated because we are about to be introduced to SO many villans whose roles in these stories are completely irrelevant. They're introduced to us to frighten Nezha but they are easily killed in the next page. There's NO pacing whatsoever, and it really brings this entire book down. Another example is not that far after fighting the "first" enemy, Nezha and co. enter this island where they are explicitly told not to trust what they can see because it's enchanted with tricker djinns. And guess what happens a few paragraphs later? A djinn disguises herself as a helpless girl, which Nezha basically falls for and scolds the unicorns when they tell her to be careful. This is straight-up terrible storytelling. I also forgot to mention that Nezha also has her pet cat that ended up in Noorenia too. Which conveniently disappears for times on end and then randomly mentioned in a line. Why even bother having it there? You could remove the cat and the story wouldn't change at all.

There was one specific moment where I genuinely thought I couldn't continue. Nezha and co. find themselves recovering from an encounter with the enemies so they decide to take a break? Literally, Nezha returns to her home in the human world and chills there as if there aren't multiple djinns chasing after her. After being told she possesses an angel's light, a power that is very important to the survival of Noorenia. Her aunt DIED in the beginning before she even entered Noorenia. I literally couldn't fathom WHY would you just return home and put your entire family at risk like that?

After all this confusion, Nezha finally faces her aunt's murderer and decides to let the djinn go. At first, I was like huh fair enough, you can forgive the murderer, that's your decision. I might not agree but you go girl. But to compare the murder of her aunt to her decision to not kill the djinn was a WACK comparison. And then we discover that Thunderbolt was *cue audience gasp* the old guard for Zul Sharr before he turned evil? I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY THIS WASN'T MENTION AT ALL? WHY IS THIS INFORMATION GIVEN TO US AT THE VERY END. WITH ZERO SUSPENSE. I actually wanted to cry, this is information that could've been SO good if it was given to us earlier. It gave us an interesting aspect of the twins and their link to Zul Sharr. It would have made it SO much more impactful in terms of the story. Except Thunderbolt SAYS NOTHING ABOUT IT. No even a sneer or a backhanded comment. ANYTHING that could've remotely suggested his connection to the prince.

There is also a love interest. Kayan, a boy who can control the wind, is conveniently introduced to us with a sad backstory about his sick father and sister. He joins the trio in hopes of finding a cure for his father. He is locked out of certain parts of the story because his power is basically too OP. The major battle at the end and this boy is literally not even there because he is conveniently not allowed to enter so his entire existence isn't even useful until their final escape. The final battle was a convoluted mess that even Nezha had to give a summary of what happened after it all ended.

There is an attempt for some semblance of a romantic relationship but it fails terribly because, again, the author chooses to tell us how to feel and react rather than show us. There is even a line where two characters joke about knowing the other so well and saying the line "your body language gave it away," I swear, I almost drop-kicked my phone. WHERE IS THIS BODY LANGUAGE? WE ARE THE READER. WE CAN'T SEE THESE CHARACTERS, SHOW US WHAT'S HAPPENING. And I cannot get over how quick to argument all these characters get because that seems to be the only way the author can make the story move along, by making them fight over insignificant things that made no sense to the story. And then rally the characters back together because ~teamwork makes the dream work~

And the ending again made no sense because Nezha returns home so she can finish her schooling but she agreed to be Noorenia's queen? Like, there was a whole fanfare moment where she promises the people to help them? WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING??! There was so much in this book that made no sense.

I received an ARC from the author in exchange for an honest review via Netgalley.

I had several reasons to like this book a lot. The unapologetic showcase of Muslim culture, the decadent descriptions of food, the wonder-inducing sense of adventure and the representation of various countries and cultures (the Pakistani culture and language in particular was really interesting for me since, as an Indian Muslim, a lot of my culture overlaps with it).

However, despite the very prominent and heartwarming pros, this story didn't work for me on two levels: the prose and the technicalities.

The writing was... simple. which in itself isn't a bad thing. But it did feel a bit jarring at times, with some clunky transitions and pacing. I do believe that this book would work a lot better as a MG than a YA. It was structured and paced more like a MG fantasy, and the characters and writing style would be better suited to a younger audience. This in itself isn't a bad thing, but it just wasn't for me, neither was it what I went in expecting.

I did feel like technicality-wise, this story needed a lot more polishing. KEEP IN MIND THAT THE ARCS REVIEWERS RECEIVED UNDERWENT SOME BIG PICTURE EDITS BEFORE PUBLICATION. So I don't want to comment too much on it, and I hope this book underwent the editing I think it needed. From my experience of reading submissions, writing, and doing critiques for authors, I could tell this book needed some big picture edits, and also some microscopic, line-line edits. However, as I said, this book has apparently gone through major edits, so I cannot comment on the final form, just the ARC as it was presented to me.

Character-wise, this story was... fine? I did really like what the author tried to do with Nezha and truly believe Nezha had the potential to be a heroine many Muslim girls could look up to. While execution did leave some things to be desired, but overall, I did understand the character and appreciated what the author tried to do. The character interactions were cute, but not as deep as dynamic as I would have preferred, which brings me back to the MG feel of the book. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, just something I didn't expect. The character interactions were fine in some places, a bit too simple and child-like in others. I did like Nezha's bond with her aunt though, it was believable and sweet.

Overall, I think this book had a lot of heart and a lot of potential. It's definitely a story we need. I did feel like the execution could be better in several technical aspects, and it needed a lot of editing which it hopefully got in those final rounds before publication.

The Crowning Soul is a young adult portal fantasy that features a main character who is moroccan and punjabi, and it’s essentially an adventure/quest kind of story where the main character must collect pieces of this “soul” of an angel so she can resurrect him. She’s got a big bad villain who isn’t a bad person as much as he is the consequence of his circumstances. As she goes on this adventure, she makes friends, finds love, yada yada yada. You know how these things usually go, now.

From what little research I did, this book started out as a Wattpad story, and if you’re familiar with how Wattpad works, usually stories are episodic in nature and there’s this slight disconnect between chapters that goes unnoticed because you consume it in a way that it doesn’t usually matter. Now, I’m not knocking on this story for starting out like that- AT ALL!! But, the disconnect is definitely evident in the proof that I ended up reading. It feels like the story has a lot of mini rising actions and climaxes, and not a complete cohesive narrative to tie it together well enough. And that’s just one thing that bothered me a little.

The episodic nature of this book aside, I feel like this book had a lot of potential! It is a solid quest-like story, and it’s even got a bunch of fun, if a bit formulaic, characters you follow around this magical world of Noorenia. Before I get into the meat of the things, let me just talk about the things I actually liked quite a bit.

The main character of this book is unapologetically Muslim and I LOVE how beautifully her religion and her relationship with it is portrayed here! I love how much her faith matters to her, and I also love that just because that’s the case with her, she doesn’t impose it on anyone else. I really liked how the main character was, in general. Even if she did some stupid things, she was an endearing presence in the book. As episodic as it did feel, I did quite enjoy the mini-climaxes in the book. There was a lot of action, and the pacing was pretty quick because of it and that kept me entertained, if nothing else. And lastly, this book had a lot of heart, and you could tell! It was just a genuine attempt at doing something fun and beautiful, and I will always commend the author for that!

All that being said, I still think this novel had a lot of flaws so I’m going to try and outline those now. Like I said, I saw a lot of potential in the story, BUT, the execution was definitely not what I would expect of a published novel. There were a lot of rough edges that needed smoothing and a lot of scenes and information that needed better structure. If I had to boil down the issues this book had, I’d say that it needed a couple of rounds of some really heavy edits. There were also some issues with the dialogue in the book. There was just this...disconnect in between one person’s line and the other person’s response. I truly believe it was fixable, though. Like I said, a few rounds of heavy edits could have done the trick, in my opinion.

The main character of this book, Nezha, like I said earlier, is very sweet and naive and all that, but, she also definitely acts like she’s much younger than her supposed age of seventeen. Just something about the way she was written read as if she was more of a preteen than someone in her late-teens. She’s too innocent, too naive, if that makes any sense. And the story being what it is, I think it would definitely have benefited from aging down of the main characters. This would have made a better middle-grade novel than it did a young adult one. Even the themes explored and the pacing and everything else, I felt, were more suited for an MG audience. This is also something that could’ve been caught in the editing process if some heavy editing was done, that’s all I’ll say.

I honestly don’t have anything too negative to say about the book, except that it was very crude in the form that I read it. I really hope the final finished copy has had more edits, and also that the books coming out from this author in the future will have better attention from the publishers in the editing department, at least. I’m excited to see how this story will move forward, for sure, but I will only be picking it up if I hear it’s better edited because, honestly, it was hard to get through because of how crude it was.

Anyway, check it out if interested! Sadly, this wasn’t the best reading experience for me. Thanks to Qamar Blog Tours for having me on and providing me with the ARC through netgalley. All opinions are my own!

Dnf. Was not a fan of the writing style. It was too choppy and jarring, and some of the descriptions/metaphors were too abstract and didn’t make sense. The dialogue felt stilted and didn’t flow well and I also had trouble figuring out what time period the book was supposed to be taking place in. I didn’t care for the main character and her relationship with her aunt and parents felt awkward.

Nezha is a young girl who is able to control the fire, she always had to hide, only her aunt helped her. Shortly before her aunt’s death Nezha begins to be followed, she realizes that the person following her is a Jinn, she also wonders if he is not responsible for her aunt’s death. She will be transported to another dimension where she will have to find and heal the parts of the soul of an angel.

In this dimension she will meet two talking Unicorns who will help her in her quest. I liked Sapphire and Thunderblot very much. They are funny and they bring lightness to the story.

I also liked that the author has created a strong Muslim heroine, when Nezha is not in Noorenia but on earth, we discover a little bit about her parents’ life and her culture.

I also appreciated the villains, they are very convincing.

I liked Noorenia even if the author deserves to make more descriptions in order to make us travel in this wonderful world with all these diverse and varied creatures.

What I regret is that I didn’t manage to become attached to the characters, I didn’t identify with them, I didn’t feel their sorrows, their loves.

The author has managed to create an interesting story, a world that seems wonderful, it just lacks a little finishing touch but overall the story is good.

I really enjoyed this book and I really hope to read more books from this author in the future. It was a great premise even if it did remind me of Inuyasha.

Nezha Zaman is a fire elemental still struggling to control her powers. Her life changes when a malevolent jinni murders her aunt, and she finds herself in the parallel world of Noorenia. There she must find the shattered pieces of an angel's soul, protect the land from the corrupted Iron Prince, and discover her family's heritage.

I really wanted to like this book. The cover is stunning and it's the first time I've seen a female muslim main character, wearing a hijab, on the cover of a fantasy book. As an arab muslim, I appreciate that the book didn't try to explain every religious mention or every Arabic word. It made me feel like I was the target audience for this book, which is pretty rare.

The story however is confusing. The pacing is extremely slow in parts where in other segments it suddenly skips forward a few weeks. Some of the sequences didn't make sense; characters are unconscious one minute and then rushing forward the next with no explanation of what happened. The connection between the normal world and Noorenia isn't very clear either.

The writing is a bit repetitive at times and parts of the book really dragged. I would guess this is the first book in a series but even so, the way the book ends feels very unresolved.

The book is labelled as young adult but it reads more like middle grade to me.

DNF @ 15%

I really tried with this book. I love the culture representation and the characters I met were charming. Something either about the prose or the story was the most confusing part. I couldn't understand what was happening with the fantasy part of this. Because of that, I didn't feel any pull to read this. I was actually dreading reading it because I knew I wouldn't enjoy it. I may try to read this again later, but that depends on then.

Also, whoever created this cover is a genius. It really is striking.

I found the blurb interesting but I struggled with this story and it didn't keep my attention.
The world building is interesting but it's not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

I was hesitant to write this review since it has taken me so long to complete this book and was not sure if I was going to make it.

At first I was really excited to follow Nezha's mystical quest, see her elemental powers develop, learn more about the Muslim fantasy background, travel to a magical land filled with unicorns, angels and jinnis and in general, just have a blast. Still... that did not happen.

Although the basic idea of the book was great and would have lead to an amazing novel (maybe a series) its execution crash and burn it all.

The story started with an interesting atmospheric vibe but was soon rushed to the point that it became unbelievable and, regarding the antagonist, too repetitive.

A myriad of characters are introduced, one after another with no clear purpose or reason (or maybe it was there, well hidden behind tons of babble).

The author also tries a brave mix of magic and technology which, sadly doesn't come out so well ( I'm talking about unicorn's magical mobile phones that go accross dimensions and get calls from the human world...).

Finally the ending also let down as it just "end without a real ending".

Even though the experience was not the best, I would like to give the author a second chance in the future since this was her first nobel.

An ARC if this book was kindly provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to the author/publisher and Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I have to be honest with you, the second star was for the cover which is stunning.
I could not finish this book like I really struggled to arrive at the 10th chapter then I gave up.
I do respect the efforts of the author for trying to create a new muslim fantasy genre story but it wasn't a success. I didn't like this book mainly for the plot and the main character . I've got confused so many times during my reading and sometimes I could not follow for the life of me where the author was going with all that nonsense. I don't want to diminish her efforts but that's how I felt to the point that I could no more continue reading another page, it was impossible and I hate to put a book in the DNF section.

The cover and the description got me at first and I was so eager to read something so fresh with a muslim female main character in a fantasy world but after the first chapters I knew I've made a mistake. The plot, for me, was going on and on to nowhere. We jump from one place to another and we meet some secondary characters talking about some nonsense about fire jawehar or the angels or how Nezha has light or fire in her blah, blah, blah. I think the main problem was that the author was trying so hard to achieve too much in this book. the writing style was good but the dialogues which were exaggerated and likely to be forced. Some characters were like trying so hard to be funny.
There was this crazy mix of oriental with occidental fantasy elements that didn't work well together or the author didn't know how to make it work and these Unicorns switching to angels and then to whatever, Every faery being is a Jinn in disguise and Nezha has to fight... I really could not keep going with this. Sorry!
I haven't finished this book and I really don't care to know what is going to happen at the end.

I hoped that the author could have made it much more simpler and clearer than this because she had something really good to start with and it was something new and hasn't be done before.
I wish her good luck for her next books and I hope that she will create something this new and much better.

Unfortunately I struggled to finish this one. The cover is absolutely stunning, and I was sold on the premise, but it was the execution that let it down. I think the main problem was that the book was trying to achieve far too much, which meant that I never felt as though I was able to get a proper grasp of what was happening or the characters, but at the same time there were places that felt incredibly repetitive. I did enjoy the writing style itself, but the plot could have done with being refined and the world-building needed to be fleshed out in a less confusing manner to really live up to the promise of the premise.