Actual rating: 3.5 
 First line: "It would not be a welcome dawn." 
 The main thing I noticed and immediately fell in love with in The Wrath & the Dawn is the beautiful writing. Ahdieh can make it that you feel so deeply with only a single sentence. Some of the dialogue between Shahrzad and Khalid had me melting because it was so angsty and lovely. 
 There were one or two things that kept me from falling head over heels for this story. Firstly, it took me a long time to even get behind this couple because I never really knew WHY they felt such strong feelings for each other. I would go as far as to say this was a case of instalove because they only knew each other for a short while. Then, there were the plots outside the palace. I hardly have a care for them. They are obviously going to have a bigger impact in the sequel, but they mostly just pulled me away from the story within the palace. 
 There was certainly a feeling of unpredictability as I read the book and it made the ending that much more powerful. I'm eager to see how the story continues in the sequel!