To all the world, Alizeh is a disposable servant, not the long-lost heir to an ancient Jinn kingdom forced to hide in plain sight.

Aside from the messy plot, the pile upon pile of discarded YA tropes which I thought we had left in the last decade; aside from the flat MC and unfeeling, rather repugnant male love interest, there was the WRITING. I liked both main characters, but I wasn’t fully blown away by them though. Alizeh I found interesting and not at all annoying (which is often the case with YA heroines, unfortunately), but I don’t feel really close to her yet. If only I had known what frustration beautiful words used in the wrong context could cause, oh my. Mafi’s writing is nothing short of theatrically histrionic. If you don’t know what that means, don’t fret, that’s precisely what Mafi seemed to be going for when she wrote these whoppers: “He felt his muscles were atrophying slowly in the suit of his skin, a silent litany of epithets perched in his mouth even when he smiled.” And it’s not just the insane lameness and utter unoriginality of the plot but that the book was lowkey steeped in misogyny. Except for our special self-insert 17-year-old main character ‘Alizeh’, there is not a SINGLE (and I’m not exaggerating here) likeable female character in this book. Except for one girl (who is portrayed as stupid, spoilt, easy to scare and terrify) that Alizeh befriends towards the end of the novel, every woman in this book is downright nasty. The MC doesn’t have any female friends; there are no female role models. Alizeh’s mistresses treat her like garbage, are jealous, frivolous, insensitive, or all three. In the series, Kamran, the crown prince of Ardunia, is an intriguing character. He is initially drawn to Alizeh because of her enigmatic presence and one-of-a-kind qualities. Kamran is depicted as intelligent, compassionate, and motivated by a sense of duty to his kingdom and family. He struggles with his role as a future ruler, always striving to uphold his father’s legacy while navigating the complexities of the kingdom’s politics.

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So disappointing. This book has everything I love about YA fantasy, but not a bit of it worked. I’m so frustrated with at this point that I feel like banging my head (as compared to my phone) against a wall. This could have been so good, but it just wasn't. Overall very little happens in this story. The Heroine and Prince are pretty passive and instead of doing things spend lots of time being mundane while telling the reader about the world, the characters and, the problems. I can excuse some things; this, I absolutely won’t. It’s wild that a book like this is part of and published in a genre predominantly geared towards teenage girls, but what do I know. The world building was excellent. I was immersed in the places that Tahereh Mafi created whether it was a closet room or a palace; a lush town filled with nature or dirty city streets. I loved that I got to see the city through Alizeh’s eyes, which means I slowly discovered more about the Kingdom while reading the book and it never felt overwhelming.

Don't even get me started on Mr Kamran, he reminds me so much of Warner<33 He is everything you want in a dark-haired-morally-grey prince who fell so damn hard for the forbidden queen destined to destroy him🥰. NOW ALIZEH the ultimate badass with a heart of gold and the strength of ten women (yes, women). Her character is just amazing and SO SMART?? Like, usually the fm main character would make all the wrong decisions and not trust their instincts and be oblivious to everything, but NOT ALIZEH. And that's one of the main reasons I loved her!! With three books in the series, “This Woven Kingdom,”“These Infinite Threads,” and the upcoming third book, “All This Twisted Glory,” Mafi weaves a spellbinding narrative that keeps readers enthralled from beginning to end. Sl. No. Their budding relationship, however, is overshadowed by prophecies foretelling the demise of Kamran’s king. They have no idea that Alizeh is the key to uprooting not only Kamran’s kingdom, but the entire world. Everyone else was cardboard material, AKA 2D prints of side characters. Honestly I'm not even sure I can really exclude the main characters from that either. I am scared of Tahereh Mafi. She takes tropes that I despise with all my being, puts them all into the same book and creates the greatest series on the planet. What witchcraft is this? I refuse to believe we use the same alphabet. Somehow with only twenty-six letters she wrote this brilliant masterpiece and all I can think of for my review is "I love it."

Now, if you like your romances well-developed, well-seasoned, with a good dash of character development, mutual emotional growth and maybe a little bit of slow-burn and tenderness, this book… IS ABSOLUTELY NOT FOR YOU as the only thing it “served” was luke-warm insta-love with a whiff of love-triangle. They see each other ONCE and already can’t stop thinking about each other. They see each other TWICE, and already they’re madly in love and obsessed. You don’t understand, I was laughing so hard, the Nokia phone I was writing my 1D fanfiction on nearly fell out of my hand. After reading This Woven Kingdom, I felt a little worried about this sequel but was willing to give it a chance because I love Alizeh’s character (and because I already owned the book). I’m pleasantly surprised that These Infinite Threads was better than expected even though I have a couple of issues with it.

The magic and history were interesting. I enjoyed learning about the history between the Jinn and Clay, the reasons the world was so divided, and her place in it.Oh. Wait. Where was I? What was I saying? Are you confused? Me too, because another aspect of the writing style I could not stand was the use of interruptions or dashes at the end of a paragraph. Once or twice, okay, I'll accept it. But if you use it consistently, then you have issues with wrapping up sentences and actually introducing tension effectively in your writing without resorting to cheap devices. It confuses the reader and makes the writing feel lost and disjointed. The amount of times that it happened was astonishing, and was a clear sign of poor writing. I was really excited for this book as I am a huge fan of Tahereh Mafi, especially her Shatter Me series. Sadly, this book didn't live up to my expectations. alizeh’s last chapter actually tore my heart out of my chest and stomped on it til that mf was unidentifiable and my gosh i can’t wait for tahereh mafi to do it again It’s completely overwritten, purple prose in all directions and very stilted. And I say that as someone who loves well-written, dense, descriptive prose. The dialogue especially was bad (and again, I love formality in dialogue. Witty, descriptive dialogue makes my heart sing). Nothing was clever or witty, just stilted. The only character who the formal/stilted dialogue fit was the King. Everyone else read as if they were eight-year-olds playing British-Royal-Family make-believe.

Perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo, Tomi Adeyemi, and Sabaa Tahir, this is the explosive first book in a new fantasy trilogy from the New York Times bestselling and National Book Award-nominated author Tahereh Mafi. Clashing empires, forbidden romance, and a long-forgotten queen destined to save her people—bestselling author Tahereh Mafi’s first in an epic, romantic trilogy inspired by Persian mythology. Okay let hear my story. lol I began my adventure at Ardunia. Here I met the crown prince of the empire 'Prince Kamran' who is instantly interested in my jinn friend Alizeh just a few times they met! This fast, mannn!! Even though she's just a servent!! 😲 I don't know why? This book was so good! This was an enchanting and interesting young adult fantasy about forbidden romance, power, magic, love and betrayal. Alizeh is the heir to an ancient Jinn kingdom, but to humans she is a servant and is not treated well. Alizeh must hide herself and her powers, until she meets Kamran, the crown prince. Kamran is suspicious of Alizeh at first, but as he learns about more about her he can't stay away. this book reminded me why the forbidden love trope is my FAVORITE. we get this knife to the throat scene that had me screaming into the night sky. “speak the truth now or i will slit your throat” is a love languageAnd the Oscar for Best Actress in the new exciting drama Managing Not to Throw This Book Repeatedly Against a Wall goes to… Kat!” Okay, when I first saw that it's a story about Jinn, Iblis, and dark magic, I was eagerly waiting to read the book and see how it would be arranged with these intriguing topics. But sadly, this whole book didn't focus too much on that. Even though the book has been standardized, it uses weighty sentences to make the world of the story believable. Still, it seemed to me that the author was focusing more on her writing than on improving the story or characters. I don't know what happened to this great writer. Is it possible that someone else is writing her book? Ehh.. I know it sounds very ridiculous. Never mind. As far as the characters, I can't really pinpoint what I liked about each, because I didn't have the connection to anyone.