Book Breakdown: Rebel of the Sands

Hiya! Today I’m going to be doing a book breakdown of Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton. A book breakdown to me is a spoiler version of a more in-depth book review (just warning you!) to look at it’s effectiveness and different aspects of the book.

The blurb describes the book as about a girl called Amani,

“Dust walk is an unforgiving, dead-end town*. It’s nor the place to be poor or orphaned or female. And yet Amani Al-Hiza must call it ‘home’. Amani wants to escape and see the world she’s heard about in campfire stories. Then a foreigner with no name turns up, and with him she has the chance to run. But the desert plains are full of dangerous magic. The Sultan’s army is on the rise and Amani is soon caught at the heart of a fearless rebellion.”

I’ve highlighted the book into four sections:

·         Backstory / Foreshadowing / Depth of Character

·         Rebellion

·         Love with Jim

·         Twists

The book had a well-developed backstory of all the characters involved and the best part was that it was given to you all at the same time and instead was gradual. This was my favourite part of the book because usually books to tend to ignore people in the background and give them a lame as can be backstory that you could see a mile away. Some of the backstories are ones you could see but the way in which they are written still encapsulates you the book.

My favourite part of backstory was the main character Amani’s ambition to get to Izman and it was such a beautiful idea throughout the book because at one point she admitted she didn’t really know if she wanted to go Izman but instead was motivated to go because that’s where her mother would have taken her and they would have both lived with Amani’s aunt if her mother had not been hanged for killing her “father”. So, in the end her motivation for surviving was crooked and represented how lost Amani was. It’s even more tragic because we don’t actually get to see the aunt in Rebel of the Sands.

Now, for the rebellion section! The rebellion section was good because it builded up slowly to finally come to a high in the end which most books based on rebellion do anyway, but it was good because you didn’t quite see it coming and the clues all fitted together nicely.

My favourite part of rebellion was with Amani shooting Commander Naguib because he was given the depth of character where he really wanted to impress his father the Sultan and was constantly the big bad and creator of chaos. Another point to add is that Naguib was Jim’s brother and when Jim was provided with the opportunity to kill him he did not because that was Jim’s own blood whether he liked it or not.

The love with Jim was one of my favourite sections because it was done in such a way with a minimal love triangle with Tamid but quickly phased out which led to me feeling the book more realistic because it was not immediate, and the relationship grew not too quickly.

My favourite part of the romance between Amani and Jim was the train because they had to kiss to avoid being spotted and taken away by Naguib and his men which led to the two being together until the end of the book. I liked this romance because I didn’t feel it forced and it seemed to naturally occur.

Rebel of the Sands is filled with twists and turns and the best thing is you couldn’t see them coming a lot of the time and they pretty constant.

My favourite twist was when Amani found out she was demedji because there were subtle hints everywhere “traitor eyes” and “you are the desert Amani” that were set out in front of me and I never saw that Amani would be a demedji. I also liked the build up of demedji and demedji myth because Amani at first had little to no knowledge of what they were and their differences in abilities.

Thank you for reading my first Book Breakdown, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments or @ElectricallyE on Twitter! Enjoy the rest of your day!