This book is about a bunch of overgrown teenagers with raging hormones, irrational, stubborn and angry. There is no reason to their actions, no logic in their thoughts. The writing itself is on immature side. Disappointed. The rating is for the 40% I've suffered through.

A Thousand Nights -- E.K. Johnston

*Retelling based on the frame story of One Thousand and One Nights

Beautifully written retelling of One Thousand and One Nights using the frame story of Scheherazade only. This particular retelling seems to be popular at present... or rather, the Arabian-based tales and retellings seem to be the trend right now (with recent releases including The Wrath and the Dawn, A Whole New World, and The Forbidden Wish). It makes me want to pick up and read the original One Thousand and One Nights just out of principle alone.

Anyway, A Thousand Nights is an enjoyable read, although I'm going to admit that there were a lot of moments I had trouble focusing. The book itself was hard to get into in the first place and started out slow, but the latter half was actually quite entertaining.

Also, does anyone else notice that no one else has a name in this entire book except for, like, maybe three people? It took me until writing this very brief review to realize that. The main character doesn't have a name, her beloved sister doesn't have a name, and neither are names ever mentioned with her family or some of the serving women in Lo-Melkhiin's qasr. An interesting way to present a story, I suppose.

Anyway, lots of thought-inspiring anecdotes and ideals present, and some interesting twists. The magic in the story was a little confusing, but I DID love the characters (even though almost all of them didn't have names). A Thousand Nights is quite enjoyable.

***

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About the author:
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Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton KCMG FRGS was a British geographer, explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet, fencer and diplomat. He was known for his travels and explorations within Asia, Africa and the Americas as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures. According to one count, he spoke 29 European, Asian, and African languages.

Burton's best-known achievements include travelling in disguise to Mecca, an unexpurgated translation of One Thousand and One Nights (also commonly called The Arabian Nights in English after Andrew Lang's abridgement), bringing the Kama Sutra to publication in English, and journeying with John Hanning Speke as the first Europeans led by Africa's greatest explorer guide, Sidi Mubarak Bombay, utilizing route information by Indian and Omani merchants who traded in the region, to visit the Great Lakes of Africa in search of the source of the Nile. Burton extensively criticized colonial policies (to the detriment of his career) in his works and letters. He was a prolific and erudite author and wrote numerous books and scholarly articles about subjects including human behaviour, travel, falconry, fencing, sexual practices, and ethnography. A unique feature of his books is the copious footnotes and appendices containing remarkable observations and unexpurgated information.

He was a captain in the army of the East India Company serving in India (and later, briefly, in the Crimean War). Following this he was engaged by the Royal Geographical Society to explore the east coast of Africa and led an expedition guided by the locals and was the first European to see Lake Tanganyika. In later life he served as British consul in Fernando Po, Santos, Damascus and, finally, Trieste. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and was awarded a knighthood (KCMG) in 1886.

book synopsis:
During ancient times, a king discovers that his wife is unfaithful. He executes her and her lover, and to ensure that he is never again betrayed, he takes a new wife each night and kills her in the morning. Eventually, he takes as his bride for the night a young woman who tells him a story that lasts all night long. When morning comes and she is to be killed, the story is not finished, and the king allows her to live through the following night so that he can hear how the story comes out. Of course, the story doesn't end the next night either, or the next night, or the next, until 1001 nights have passed, and the king decides to let her live and make her his queen.

These are the stories of Ali Baba and the forty thieves, Aladdin and his magic lamp, and Sinbad the sailor - stories of flying carpets, gigantic birds, and mischievous genies - stories that have captured the Western imagination for hundreds of years.

Compiled in the Middle Ages, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night is the chief glory of Arabic literature.

My rating: 4.5 stars
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A book about books

What did I think of the story:
I'm so glad that I finally finished it, it's been on my DNF TBR since 07 when I got it. There was some stories I liked and some I loved.

A Thousand Nights is a loose-ish retelling of the Scheherazade story. It’s E.K. Johnston’s third book, and it’s firmly cemented her as a go-to author for me. I got the ARC for this one just before the Cybils started, so I set it aside until now. And while I’m sorry I had to wait this long, I’m happy that I had a chance to really savor this lovely book.

First, I think it’s worth stating upfront that Johnston is really thoughtful about how she changes the Scheherazade story. She resists romance here, which I appreciated. This is not the story of a girl falling in love with her captor, and it so easily could be.

The narrator of A Thousand Nights is never given a name–in fact, many of the characters aren’t. They’re defined in relationship to the narrator, or to the each other, which gives the story an immediacy and intimacy that I think works really well here. In fact, I felt that the narrator’s voice throughout the story, and the authorial choices that Johnston makes in terms of the way language is used, are one of the major strengths of the book.

Despite the fact that she’s not given a name, I found the narrator’s character–the way she experiences the world–worked in a really powerful way. This story is about some big themes and ideas, but it’s driven by the narrator and her choices.

One of the things I most appreciated about the book is the way it centers the relationships between the women in the story. The narrator is motivated by  her love for her sister, and she has strong, important connections with her mother, her sister’s mother, and Lo-Melkhiin’s mother. Even more so, the story explicitly honors and talks about women’s stories, women’s secrets, and women’s lives in a way that I found really refreshing. The place of handcrafts and traditional women’s work in the story is also really great; they’re shown with respect for the work and knowledge that goes into them and shown to have power, even if that power is often overlooked or misunderstood by men.

Moreover, the women in the story are not set in competition with each other. The narrator and her sister love each other, and their mothers are dear friends. Even Lo-Melkhiin’s mother and the servants in the qasr are shown to have relationships with each other and with the narrator that are supportive and nurturing, rather than competitive.

There’s also a great exploration of pride in who you are and where you come from. Many of the narrator’s images and similes grow out of her life in the desert, and she’s shown to draw much of her sense of self and her sense of strength from that identity. In the end, the story makes that a bittersweet thing, and yet I found that it really grounded the narrator and gave her a sense of purpose and the readers a sense of who she is. I had a sense of tradition and culture that’s very deep, even if we don’t see all of it.

Finally, this is a book that’s all about choices. The narrator faces hard choices again and again, and she has to choose rightly and see clearly in order to keep herself alive and to keep her family and country safe. The narrative deals really well with this, making it seem natural, while at the same time drawing attention to this theme and to the narrator’s sense of being on a knife’s edge.

In case it’s not clear, I really loved this book–I found it a joy to read and I was consistently surprised and convinced by Johnston’s choices, and by the narrator and her story. It combines a sense of being rooted in a sense of family and history and self, with a strength and purpose that’s shown to be how the narrator saves herself in the end.

Book source: ARC passed on from Brandy

Book information: 2015, Hyperion; YA historical fantasy