I stayed up until 1 a.m. reading this, then woke up at 6 a.m. and surreptitiously read this throughout my work day. No sophomore slump with this book; in fact, I'd actually say that it improves upon all elements of the last one - especially my favorite aspect of any fantasy novel: 
 THE WORLD BUILDING. 
 Tahir expands the world in every way, from the peoples (we hear more about the Tribesman and even get to hear about a new people, the Mariners), to the locations, and the fantasy elements. I love the way she incorporates Arabian myth and folktales into her story. It's a refreshing break from fantasy worlds that are somehow still populated with predominantly white humans running around with fair skinned elves, orcs, and dwarves. 
 Also, each character is three dimensional - even the villains (for the most part)! I especially love the introduction of Helene's POV chapters to the series. At first I was impatient to get back to Laia and Elias, but Tahir really made her a fully fleshed out character whose story line I was enthralled by. I like that, for a YA novel, Tahir certainly doesn't let her characters down easy. They suffer, they make bad choices, people they care about die. And yet, she also doesn't pull punches simply for shock value or in a way that feels cheap. Every moment, every decision and ramification feels genuine and earned. 
 Finally, even though I love romance in all each and everyone of my books, YA books do have the unfortunate tendency to shoe-horn it in and render all previously interesting characters flat and vaguely offensive (especially the girls). Thankfully, that doesn't happen here at all. Love and attraction plays a part in the story, sometimes a major part, but mostly it's an undercurrent that the characters acknowledge when they can - which isn't often, since they're all mostly running for their lives. I enjoyed the interactions between Laia and Elias, finding them genuine and simmering. Even the dreaded love triangle (yes, Keenen rears his red-headed mug halfway through the book) was actually not that dreadful, mostly because Elias and Keenan actually both care about Laia and Laia, unlike many other YA protagonists, isn't driven by her love for these two, but instead by her love for her brother. So she actually acts like a real person. 
 My only real complaint is that I apparently have to wait until 2018 for the next one, but even that's not that much of a complaint since I thought this was only a two book series!