Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty

15 reviews

chaptertraveller's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0


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hanarama's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The Good:
 • Sympathetic opposing POVs
 • Interesting setting and world building
 • Pleasant writing style
 • Satisfying ending

The Bad:
• Portions or the final showdown felt overly convenient.
• Information kept from reader.

You Might Like this if You Like:
• Epic fantasy
• Unique world building
• Big final battles 

As the conclusion to the Daevabad trilogy, I feel mostly positive, but a tad mixed. 

Coming off of the excellent second installment, Chakraborty initially allows her readers a well needed chance to breath and absorb everything that happened thus far. This also gives her ample time to set up the different factions as they were left off. This allows the reader to really absorb the growing threats and to see the characters in new settings. 

And this book brings a few new settings that really help to flesh out the world. While the previous books took place mostly within Daevabad, this book takes place mostly outside of the city. It was really cool to see parts of the Djinn world that have only been mentioned previously. 

However despite the great first and second acts, I felt like the final showdown was a bit lacking. Though the overall conclusion was satisfying, I rolled my eyes a couple of times during the battle. It felt as though it were written as a screenplay rather than a book. Some key information wasn't given to readers beforehand, leading to some silly, Marvel-style reveals. Further, it felt like everything and anything went right for the heroes, erasing a good chunk of the tension I had felt leading up to the conclusion. It felt really out of left field as Chakraborty has previously written very tense and engaging battle sequences. 

Non-battle reveals did shock me though, and felt well executed, and satisfying. The mains all got appropriate endings. Overall, a good read. 

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totallyshelfaware's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This obliterated me. 5 stars. 

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micheala's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

I've been putting this book off for a while as I loved the first two books and I didn't want this trilogy to end. The thing that finally pushed me to pick it up was the fact that it was overdue at the library and I couldn't renew it and I felt bad not reading it or returning it lol

There really is no way to talk about the finally in a series without spoiling the rest of the series, so if you haven't read the Daevabad Trilogy, all I can say is I highly recommend it.

I'm not a particularly fast reader, but I finished this 750+ page book in 4 days. The pacing never feels like it's dragging or like any of those pages are simply filler. Everything feels important to the plot and necessary for this rich world and this stunning conclusion to an amazing trilogy.

We continue to have the three alternating POVs of Narhi, Ali and Dara and all three of those POVs feel like they were given equal importance (not like the author had a clear favourite that they wanted to spend more time with, like I'm currently encountering with another book)

I did spend a LOT of this book very frustrated with Dara, in that he keeps being willfully naive about what is going on and what he is assisting with. I mean it makes sense for his character, it's just annoying wanting him to get with it already. Plus spending so much time with Manizheh was infuriating - like I'm sure it was meant to be. 

I liked seeing all the threads that were laid in the first two books concerning Ali and Narhi start coming together. Finding out the truth about both of their histories was very satisfying. 

I also really appreciated the way things wrapped up. It's not all sunshine and rainbows (there was a genocide and civil war that just happened so it would have felt out of place if it had), but there was that hopeful tint to the events. 

Overall this was a very satisfying conclusion to a series that I've very much enjoyed and I'm glade to finally have read it. 

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icfasntw's review against another edition

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adventurous dark fast-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

QUICK PITCH: The final book in Chakraborty's Daevabad Trilogy, sequel to The City of Brass and The Kingdom of Copper

VERDICT: I really cooled down on this book. The first two featured a lot of politicking, which is always my favorite. The third book felt like part adventure novel, part "hanging out with the bad guys so you know how bad they are," and part wrapping up a bunch of threads that were introduced in earlier installments as quickly as possible. The result felt a bit rushed and didn't hold my attention like the first two.

SERIES: Overall, I think the series is all right. I thoroughly enjoyed the first two books and I love seeing fantasy stories from perspective other than "Western European." My biggest complaint is that I wish some of the longer threads, like
the marid
, had been introduced and explored more thoroughly in previous books instead of all solved at once at the end.

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