Hero At the Fall by Alwyn Hamilton is the conclusion to the epic fantasy trilogy entitled “Rebel of the Sands”. With a setting that is part wild west, part Arabian fantasy, these three books are full of adventure, magic and romance. I was pleased with the ending, feeling that the author wrapped up all major plot lines in a satisfactory way.

This last volume is strongly focused on the main character, Amani, and we can see how much she has grown over the course of the trilogy. After their long separation, it was great to see Amani and Jin back together again. While all characters don’t make to the end, I thought the author handled everything as realistically as she could considering she was writing about rebellion, battles and magical Djinn. In this book, the desert was very important and the reader can almost feel the heat and sandy dryness.

Although this last book started off slow, with the alliance being trapped in a city and many of the most important characters captured but once they got out the pace picked up and we were awarded with lots of action. Overall I loved following these characters and I enjoyed this YA series. ( )

This end to the trilogy took a bit longer to get into than the previous books. Rebellion kicked into full swing. Things were wrapped up as best they could be. ( )

Read the full review here: http://www.thefandom.net/books/book-review-hero-at-the-fall-by-alwyn-hamilton/

Alwyn Hamilton immerses readers in the world of Amani once again as the Rebels overcome new challenges and face even harder decisions than before. Fighting in a war where neither side rests means that unfortunately, not everyone will make it. It’s up to Amani and the Rebel leaders to make sure that they prevail and bring “a new dawn, a new desert.”

Honestly, it’s hard to give a detailed synopsis for Hero at the Fall because it’s such an action-packed book. I would love to talk about a few specific events that really took me by surprise, but they would all be spoilers. However, I will say there are plenty of battles, magic, romance, secrets, and unexpected appearances from new and old characters. To give a slightly simplified version, Hero at the Fall picks up exactly where Traitor to the Throne left off. Amani struggles to lead the Rebellion and find a way to defeat the Sultan after the loss of crucial members of the Rebellion.

In terms of the plot and characters, this is one of the books that seems to fall under an “it’s me, not you” type of situation. While I know a lot of people enjoyed Hero at the Fall, I found it a bit mediocre, which I chalk up to my lack of interest in reading lately, but also the writing style. Because the plot revolves heavily on action, there are so many events happening one right after another, which usually makes the book gripping, but I felt ironically underwhelmed by the overwhelming number of events. Since things were happening every second, there was no time to build suspense and really create a sense of urgency. As a result, I felt that events were being tossed at me one after another, and it just started becoming this repetitive pattern. Following this, it seems like description and detail were sacrificed in favor for more action scenes, which is completely fine, but I think this made it a bit difficult for me to get into Amani’s character. Her narrative was a bit bland and provided a lot more telling than showing.

So if I wasn’t really a fan of the plot or characters then why still give it 3.5 stars? Well, I actually really enjoyed the first third of the novel. I think this part appealed to me more because I liked the pacing in this section. Since it’s the beginning of the novel, the reader isn’t thrown into the midst of things. We’re eased in more slowly, and there’s not as much happening so we get more details and time to familiarize ourselves with the characters again. Once the middle hit, I became a bit bored with the plot. However, the third part of the novel made me bump up my rating. This was my favorite section of the novel because of surprise character appearances and also because Amani’s character development was finally in play. I didn’t really feel like her character developed much in the first half of the novel, but her character arc in the last part was done really nicely, and that’s when I started liking her character. ( )

This is a review of the series as a whole, since I read them all pretty much successively. So there will be spoilers for the series (though if you're on this page, hopefully you've read the other two already). But in short: incredibly inventive setting let down by hopelessly cliche characters and average writing.

First, I adore the setting and the world. Wild West meets fantasy Middle East is a wonderful, fun, unique, and incredibly well-done merging of two popular genres that provide an incredible amount of ideas for Hamilton to play with. The myths of Djinn and the independence indicative of Wild West stories merge together incredibly well. The little bits we learned about the neighboring countries and their customs made me want to learn more.

However. That's about all I liked. The prose was a little purple and much too repetitive, even for the younger audience that Hamilton was aiming for. How many times did I need to read a variation of "the sand got everywhere" or "the sand was a part of you if you lived in the desert" or "Demdjinn don't lie" or "I can't lie, I'm a Demdjinn" (or mentions of Shazad's beauty, or Amani's blue eyes, or
SO MANY other things)?? I honestly feel like it was a least once a chapter. I understand motifs, but there's a difference between motifs and just flat-out repetition for no repetition's sake. Whenever Jin called Amani "Bandit" or "Blue Eyed-Bandit," it felt incredibly inauthentic. I understand teasing someone about a nickname they've earned, especially one as famous as that, but the way he did it and the situations he used it in was clunky (like, when he's asking her advice, or complimenting her, when it would have made much more natural sense to just use her name).

And I understand what Hamilton was trying to do when she interjected the myths in between chapters (though I wish she had done that in the first book as well, for consistency), but I didn't understand why their names weren't used. In some of the myths, the descriptors were used (The First One, The Sin Maker, etc.), but it seems like that is only the case because their names aren't known, since when they are known, the names are used (Princess Hawa, Ashra, etc.). So why didn't Hamilton use the characters names when she was recounting their myths? It's fine to call Hala "the Golden Girl" a few times (or Shazad "the Beautiful General," or Jin "the Foreign Prince"...), but not every single time. Using their names would make more sense with the idea that their stories will live on past their deaths in a meaningful way, especially in the case of Sam, who, as we learn, is eventually forgotten in his homeland but remembered (as the Nameless Boy, apparently??) in the desert.

And the characters were so incredibly cliche, and their plots so predictable. The only thing that didn't happen which I expected was that Jin didn't turn out to be a Demdjinn, which I was incredibly thankful for. Otherwise, of course he fell in love with Amani, and of course Ahmed was a kind, thoughtful, if unassertive ruler, and of course Shazad was beautiful but deadly, and of course Sam the wise-cracking thief would fall in love with her, and of course Amani and Jin were brought back to life once they "died." Nothing was unexpected when it came to the characters, their actions, or their development. Which, with a setting this inventive, is an incredible let down.

I would love to read this series written by a different author. ( )

A satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. Amani and her friends are prisoners in their own city, kept there by a ring of fire the Sultan has created to prevent anyone from coming or going without his permission. Amani is determined to rescue their imprisoned friends, including the rebel prince (Ahmed), who is thought to be dead and put him in his rightful place on the throne. There is lots of action and the main theme of the book seems to be sacrifices. While the book's ending was a bit predictable, I think author Hamilton could have done a better job with the final showdown, which felt strangely impersonal. I liked the Middle Eastern themes, the overarching distrust of foreigners and family politics among the Sultan's brood, and the Djinnis. ( )