I finished this book but I was not invested with the story or the characters. I felt that the plot wasn't fully fleshed out but the concept of it was intriguing.

I wanted to really love this book. The summary hooked me from the start and the cover is so enchanting but that's where it really ended.

I struggled with this one.

I wanted....more...more connections with the characters, more straightforward arcs.....just more.


Thank you NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

DNF... this book did not work for me. it seems like an interesting concept, but this book needs to be edited a lot more.

DNF @ 20%

I'll keep this review short.

I really wanted to love this book. And I'm really sad that I didn't. Nezha is a great main character and I loved reading about her, her fire magic, and also about her relationship with her aunt. But something just didn't really work for me, and I couldn't get into the story. Unfortunately, this book wasn't for me.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was a little confused by this book.  The world itself was a little confusing so I had to put it down. So then I was scrolling through the reviews on Goodreads and the author said that the finished version was much better, so I bought it on Amazon. I do have to say that the finished version is more condensed and a little bit easier to follow. I had the same problem with Furyborn. So if you enjoyed Furyborn I am sure you will enjoy this book. I just felt like too much was going on and the jumping from character to character and having flashbacks were just too much for my brain to handle. The storyline is good but like I said a little muffled in my opinion.

Sadly, the book wasn't for me. While the writing style of the author really brought forward the richness of the world and the culture, it also managed to make the character a bit more juvenile than I tend to enjoy.
This is, obviously, more a thing of me being in the cusp of adulthood than a critique of ya characters but it was still worth mentioning it. 
It's not a book that I would recommend simply because it didn't manage to capture my attention throughout and rather bored me.

Thank you, Netgalley and Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), Members' Titles for providing me with an ARC of this book. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Crowning Soul is the debut fantasy book from the author Sahira Javaid. It is the first book in the series by the name Heart of Noorenia. When I saw the blurb mentioning the book being perfect for fans of InuYasha, I got really pumped to read this. The story follows young Nezha Zaman, a fire mage whose life gets upended after her encounters with a vindictive Jinn. She realizes dangers are lurking around her, and it seems to be following her and her family. She gets pulled into a different realm called Noorenia, which she, later on, realizes to be her family's roots as well. On arrival at Noorenia, she meets two unicorns who tells her the story of the fantastical Kingdom and its history. The light orb inside her is given to her by her relative. It will guide her in collecting the soul's shards from an angel who got attacked by the Iron Prince. The soul's pieces are the angel's soul that got disintegrated into several fragments. Nezha is the chosen one who needs to find all of the missing shards of the angel's soul to protect the Kingdom from ruin. The unicorns accompany Nezha in her journey, and the story is them going on different adventures, while Nezha is fulfilling her destiny.

As I mentioned earlier, the blurb sounded fascinating, and I was excited to try this book. The cover looked gorgeous as well. Unfortunately, I realized that the book didn't work for me. But I continued hoping things would change as the story progressed. I was wrong, and sadly, I couldn't enjoy it. Sadly, I had to DNF it at 50%, and it is with a heavy heart, I am saying this as I hate to DNF books. It had a lot of potential with all the elements introduced, and the concept was unique as well. Sahira Javaid is a Muslim author, and I am happy for her debut fantasy and the Muslim representation. 

Overall I wasn't happy that I had to DNF it halfway through the book. I wish things were different. Also, I will not be rating the novel, as it will be unfair for me to give it a rating without completing the book. But, If I was to rate the half I completed, I would be giving it 1 star.

From the plot I thought this was going to be an amazing book, plus the representation and cultural background was a huge bonus that caught my attention.
Sadly it didn't meet my expectations, there's just so much in just one book, it should have probably been split in more,

ARC from NetGalley

DNF at 24%

I don't normally like to rate books that I don't finish, but I got about 1/4 of the way through this, so I feel semi okay about it. This is a generous 2 stars for the first quarter of the book.

This is not a YA book. This is firmly middle grade. I should have suspected as much just from the map at the front of the book, which includes such gems as:
Unicorn Valley
Mount Frostbite
Mermaid Island
Phoenix Matrix
Fairy Flower Fields

Like several others, I found the cultural references and the food descriptions to be positive bubbles in this ocean of juvenility. Not enough to keep me breathing, unfortunately, as it all took place at the very beginning before things went so drastically south. The beginning of the book starts off with Nezha and her family, cultural references, food references, some dark happenings, and then we are thrust into the bosom of the Happy Little Elves. Yes, this book could use an edit or several, but it wasn't the language/grammar errors that made it unenjoyable, it was the jerky, virtually paceless happenings. We get whiplash moving from one scene to the next with absolutely no idea how much time has passed and with nearly 0 actual conflict, no character growth, no reason to GAF about what's happening, and terrible, terrible dialogue. I had to stop reading when Nezha wakes up the unicorns she is travelling with by telling one his hair was messy and the other that she is too critical. This wakes them up from a supernatural slumber imposed upon them by sprites. And why is the cat here? Why did the cat come with her through the portal to the parallel world? Has this author ever owned a cat? This cat is travelling on horseback, flying through the air, traversing the ocean in a bubble. We hear nothing from her but the odd meow. Let me tell you, I have owned my fair share of cats, some very chill, and yeah. Not realistic. I understand it's a fantasy, but it's not the unicorns and mermaids that made it difficult to suspend disbelief, it was the cat. 

This author needs to pull this book and redo it almost entirely. Either make it a true middle grade book, clean up the grammar/spelling issues, work on the pacing and awful dialogue (even as a kid I would think this was juvenile), or stick with marketing it as a YA book and just set it on fire and start from scratch.

this was a lot of fun to read, it was exactly what i was looking for in this genre and I really enjoyed the characters. I look forward to more from the series and the author.

Im rating this 5 stars as I am not able to read this book at this time but from the chapter I was able to read, the story is definitely there. And beautiful work.

I have to say that, while I love concept and the Muslim representation in this book, this book did not live up to its potential. The writing was incredibly sloppy and fragmented. There's grammatical issues and typos galore, as well as a very basic mode of writing style. I know that the ARC will have its issues, but I couldn't make it through 635 pages of this. It had potential, but desperately needed some revision and copy editing.

I'm sad to say that I did not like this book as much as u wanted to.  
I was really excited because first of all the cover and blurb/summary felt really promising. 
A Muslim protagonist, fantasy, jinns! 
I was so excited. But it didn't live up to the hype.  
 The unedited ARC made the reading experience quite challenging. Keeping that aside. 
I would say, the story had potential.  It wasn't executed properly.

This book had some beautiful cultural representation, and there were some interesting magical creatures that I was drawn to. But the plot felt all over the place and I did not enjoy it like I hoped I would.

Really can't get over the sloppy writing. While the cultural aspects were done with authenticity, the characters and story arc went hay-wire. Expected so much from this one.

I received an eARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

3/3.5 stars.

This has some really beautiful world building moments in it, culturally rich with fantastical creatures thrown in.

However, the plot was a little all over the place. The best way I can try to put this into perspective is - you're watching one of your favourite shows, it's gearing up to something interesting, and then the adverts come on, so you run out of the room for a snack/toilet break ect but you were a minute or two too long taking that break and when you come back you've missed a section of what's happened and you have no idea how you've got to where you're at in the episode. That's what reading this book was like throughout. Now I'm not sure if this is just something that is due to it being an eARC and perhaps it will be tweaked and tightened for the final product but at times it caused the story flow to be very confusing.

The beginning felt quite rushed and then all of a sudden we had jumped into another world and things just kept speed jumping.

I really enjoyed the mythical creatures and the magic and I feel this story has so much potential but it got a little frustrating to read.

Thank you for the review copy netgalley!

The reason I rated this book 2 stars even though I adore the representation and the general idea of the book, is partially the writing. I feel like it needs to be edited due to lots of repetitive phrases and sometimes really drawn out parts that aren’t really relevant to the story.
Another reason is the story. Again I do like the general idea of it, but the execution falls a bit flat sadly. I can’t really follow the reasoning behind the actions of the characters, and I also sadly couldn’t connect very well with the characters either.

That said, I do look forward to reading other books by the author since I think that she does have a lot of potential as a story teller.

It feels so bad to say this is an average read. Maybe I expected a lot but I do think there were discrepancies that could have been easily reformed if an extensively technical editing was attempted, and this makes me even sadder. 

Let's start with the best aspects: the culture is so beautifully represented, left right and centre, that it makes me extremely happy as a person of colour; the simple writing is so easy to dive into and feels so much at home in some parts that I almost forget what's lacking. There's some interesting bits of magic, including the extraordinary creatures like unicorns and dragons, that are bound to keep you lightly engrossed. 

The plot was all over the place and the voice read a lot younger than the YA it was trying to align with. At times, there's a lot of focus on what's going around and simply telling the readers what's occurring rather than letting the main character convey it through herself, and that resulted in a lack of character connectivity and loss of plot attachment. If it was intentionally written for a middle-grade tone, it would've certainly done better. This isn't to say YA characters can't be too young but it's to say this story would've worked so much better if the right demographic was considered earlier. 

Also, this review that arises after reading an early copy should be received with an open likelihood of a finished copy showing immense improvements. Basically, this has so much potential and no one is more heartbroken at this opinion of mine.

After reading the book description, I was initially very interested in this book. A girl who hides her ability to conjure fire finds herself in a land of magic and an array of jinns on her tail. But there was something nagging me at the back of my mind about the description. It felt blunt, and rather uninspiring, especially, now that I look back on it. And I feel like that should've been the first warning sign.

I took on this book because of the blog tour and I was unable to write a review for this book because, frankly, I don't think I have anything good to say about it. I felt annoyed when I finished this book, irritated that I should've trusted my gut feeling instead of choosing to go ahead with my participation, in hopes that the book would redeem itself. And it didn't. Not in the slightest of bits.

The story begins with Nezha and her family in celebration. They run the family store where they sell a variety of flowers and treats for any occasion. Aware of her fire skills, her parents are quiet about her secret and Nezha feels like her aunt is the only person who truly knows her. And in the midst of a party, she hears a voice that kept saying "fire elemental," which leads to her being cornered inside a maze by djinn. Nezha's aunt is soon killed off, which was so infuriating because if you know a djinn is after you, a djinn that is aware that you have a special power, why on earth would you let your defenceless family member leave your sight?

The perspective then changes over to our main villain, Zul Sharr, an Iron prince turned djinn, who is heartbroken after losing the love of his life. He gives into a djinn called Lexa, who swears she can help him gain the power she needs. I didn't understand what was happening, I didn't even think half of the chapters we get from their POVs were even necessary. There was no distinction at all between the voices of Nezha, Zul Sharr and Lexa and the other supporting character. It felt jarring when they were all together in some chapters because it read like an absolute mess.

Nezha ends up in the magical world of Noorenia in the strangest way possible. It begins with an earthquake, which leads to her grandfather swapping bodies with his brother, who resides in Noorenia. And the grand uncle brings her to Noorenia via a pond where she is faced with two unicorns. Sounds familar? Because that is where the book's official description ends and we've barely scratched the surface of the book. (In my e-copy, I believe it wasn't even 10% into the book?) If anyone that is a part of the team that worked on this book is reading this, please, I beg someone to rewrite the book description, because it is so bad. And I'm not even saying this to be rude, I JUST WANTED THIS BOOK TO BE BETTER.

Okay, now onto the unicorns, two siblings, Sapphire and Thunderbolt. Again, two new voices with zero colour in their voices. Thunderbolt acts like an annoying child, rather pretentious and Sapphire is very lacklustre. But we are told they are important so therefore, we have to go along with it. They encounter their first enemy djinn very soon, and this is where I first got really frustrated because we are about to be introduced to SO many villans whose roles in these stories are completely irrelevant. They're introduced to us to frighten Nezha but they are easily killed in the next page. There's NO pacing whatsoever, and it really brings this entire book down. Another example is not that far after fighting the "first" enemy, Nezha and co. enter this island where they are explicitly told not to trust what they can see because it's enchanted with tricker djinns. And guess what happens a few paragraphs later? A djinn disguises herself as a helpless girl, which Nezha basically falls for and scolds the unicorns when they tell her to be careful. This is straight-up terrible storytelling. I also forgot to mention that Nezha also has her pet cat that ended up in Noorenia too. Which conveniently disappears for times on end and then randomly mentioned in a line. Why even bother having it there? You could remove the cat and the story wouldn't change at all.

There was one specific moment where I genuinely thought I couldn't continue. Nezha and co. find themselves recovering from an encounter with the enemies so they decide to take a break? Literally, Nezha returns to her home in the human world and chills there as if there aren't multiple djinns chasing after her. After being told she possesses an angel's light, a power that is very important to the survival of Noorenia. Her aunt DIED in the beginning before she even entered Noorenia. I literally couldn't fathom WHY would you just return home and put your entire family at risk like that?

After all this confusion, Nezha finally faces her aunt's murderer and decides to let the djinn go. At first, I was like huh fair enough, you can forgive the murderer, that's your decision. I might not agree but you go girl. But to compare the murder of her aunt to her decision to not kill the djinn was a WACK comparison. And then we discover that Thunderbolt was *cue audience gasp* the old guard for Zul Sharr before he turned evil? I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY THIS WASN'T MENTION AT ALL? WHY IS THIS INFORMATION GIVEN TO US AT THE VERY END. WITH ZERO SUSPENSE. I actually wanted to cry, this is information that could've been SO good if it was given to us earlier. It gave us an interesting aspect of the twins and their link to Zul Sharr. It would have made it SO much more impactful in terms of the story. Except Thunderbolt SAYS NOTHING ABOUT IT. No even a sneer or a backhanded comment. ANYTHING that could've remotely suggested his connection to the prince.

There is also a love interest. Kayan, a boy who can control the wind, is conveniently introduced to us with a sad backstory about his sick father and sister. He joins the trio in hopes of finding a cure for his father. He is locked out of certain parts of the story because his power is basically too OP. The major battle at the end and this boy is literally not even there because he is conveniently not allowed to enter so his entire existence isn't even useful until their final escape. The final battle was a convoluted mess that even Nezha had to give a summary of what happened after it all ended.

There is an attempt for some semblance of a romantic relationship but it fails terribly because, again, the author chooses to tell us how to feel and react rather than show us. There is even a line where two characters joke about knowing the other so well and saying the line "your body language gave it away," I swear, I almost drop-kicked my phone. WHERE IS THIS BODY LANGUAGE? WE ARE THE READER. WE CAN'T SEE THESE CHARACTERS, SHOW US WHAT'S HAPPENING. And I cannot get over how quick to argument all these characters get because that seems to be the only way the author can make the story move along, by making them fight over insignificant things that made no sense to the story. And then rally the characters back together because ~teamwork makes the dream work~

And the ending again made no sense because Nezha returns home so she can finish her schooling but she agreed to be Noorenia's queen? Like, there was a whole fanfare moment where she promises the people to help them? WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING??! There was so much in this book that made no sense.

I received an ARC from the author in exchange for an honest review via Netgalley. 

I had several reasons to like this book a lot. The unapologetic showcase of Muslim culture, the decadent descriptions of food, the wonder-inducing sense of adventure and the representation of various countries and cultures (the Pakistani culture and language in particular was really interesting for me since, as an Indian Muslim, a lot of my culture overlaps with it). 

However, despite the very prominent and heartwarming pros, this story didn't work for me on two levels: the prose and the technicalities. 

The writing was... simple. which in itself isn't a bad thing. But it did feel a bit jarring at times, with some clunky transitions and pacing. I do believe that this book would work a lot better as a MG than a YA. It was structured and paced more like a MG fantasy, and the characters and writing style would be better suited to a younger audience. This in itself isn't a bad thing, but it just wasn't for me, neither was it what I went in expecting.

I did feel like technicality-wise, this story needed a lot more polishing. KEEP IN MIND THAT THE ARCS REVIEWERS RECEIVED UNDERWENT SOME BIG PICTURE EDITS BEFORE PUBLICATION. So I don't want to comment too much on it, and I hope this book underwent the editing I think it needed. From my experience of reading submissions, writing, and doing critiques for authors, I could tell this book needed some big picture edits, and also some microscopic, line-line edits. However, as I said, this book has apparently gone through major edits, so I cannot comment on the final form, just the ARC as it was presented to me. 

Character-wise, this story was... fine? I did really like what the author tried to do with Nezha and truly believe Nezha had the potential to be a heroine many Muslim girls could look up to. While execution did leave some things to be desired, but overall, I did understand the character and appreciated what the author tried to do. The character interactions were cute, but not as deep as dynamic as I would have preferred, which brings me back to the MG feel of the book. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, just something I didn't expect. The character interactions were fine in some places, a bit too simple and child-like in others. I did like Nezha's bond with her aunt though, it was believable and sweet.

Overall, I think this book had a lot of heart and a lot of potential. It's definitely a story we need. I did feel like the execution could be better in several technical aspects, and it needed a lot of editing which it hopefully got in those final rounds before publication.