One Thousand and One Nights

Note: This is the first version (retelling, translation, etc) that I have read of One Thousand and One Nights. Before reading this I knew:
- It revolves around a woman named Shahrazad
- To escape death she tells a new story every night
- A lot of classic stories came from this.
- Bugs Bunny did an episode about this a long long time ago

That's it. How does it end? I don't know. What are the stories? Aladdin? Sinbad? Some other smaller ones?.... basically, I was in the dark.

I decided to read this as part of a group read here on Goodreads. It had high praise, so why not? It surprisingly wasn't that long either.

Let me start with the good.
- Lots of original stories.
- updated with some modern language
- writing style flowed nicely.

Now the problems.
- What happened to Shahrazad?... She starts the first few “chapters”, then disappears until the very very end. If she's telling a new part of the story every night, then shouldn't she appear a little more often.
- The ending... Um... So what DID happen to her? Again, this is my first time reading One Thousand and One Nights. Since the whole point is to escape death, I assume she survive. Was she happy? How long did all these stories take her? hello??


Basically, I enjoyed the story, but I felt let down. For someone who is unfamiliar with the original tale, this leaves too many unanswered questions. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless they were familiar with the original tale.