Reviews with content warning for Racism - The Kingdom of Copper

It has been about a year since I listened to the first part of the trilogy. It was a huge mistake to wait that long because I spent about the first 20 % of the book wondering who that character was, what that word meant and what happened in the last book.

After I got over that, the book started dragging for a different reason: NOTHING MEANINGFUL HAPPENS! It feels like there are no stakes, and so much time is spent on describing the most meaningless things. As one reviewer pointed out, everything that the characters try to do is thwarted by someone more powerful.

About 60 % in, I realized that I do not care about any of these characters. Except maybe for Dara, because he is at least a little bit interesting. There’s no real feeling of danger, and I knew nothing bad would happen to the characters. The main character, Nahri, is insufferably righteous, the same as Ali. As one reviewer put it: 99 % of the characters are magical racists, religious fanatics or war criminals. Not exactly a likeable bunch.

Spoilers!

If I remember correctly, there’s a little bit of romance between Nahri and Dara in the first book, and I started rooting for Dara. In this book, Nahri is forced to marry King Ghassan’s son, and we get to see how evil and manipulative Ghassan is. Dara is brought back to life to serve Manizheh, who plans to oust the Qahtanis and restore Nahid rule to Daevabad. HOWEVER, it turns out that Manizheh is the evil one, and when she and her forces attack Daevabad, ALL of the characters forget what kind of a**hole Ghassan was, and everyone is very sad that he’s dead. RIP. Nahri is, of course, a smart and spunky heroine and saves the day, yay!

But in all seriousness, I could not give a damn about any of these characters, especially since they are all so infuriatingly dramatic all the time. It sucks out any real impact a really dramatic scene should have when the characters are gasping and staring in shock about half of the book. If the author succeeded in something, it was when in the first book, I started to like Dara, even though he is practically a war criminal. Then, in the second book, I’m supposed to root for the Qahtanis, I guess?

In addition to that, this book is all over the place about the shafit, the “mixed-bloods”, who are part human. The shafit are treated as something to be saved, and when they lash out for being treated like cattle, they are suddenly wild animals.

This book has way too many elements, it’s way too slow, and everything is so damn dramatic all the time. I’m so glad this is over. Let’s see if I pick up the last part of this series in a year or so after I have forgotten how messy and frustrating this was.

Content Warnings

brodi's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.25

Really enjoyable read, following the different characters gave perspective. Really informative as I didn't realise this was a trilogy and read this without any context and couldn't I had missed a book before it.

Content Warnings

erebus53's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Wading back into the fraught and politically interwoven world of the Daeva, could begin to get overwhelming. I was very interested to see what happened to my favourite characters though.

This book finally sees people talking about what happens when the heir to the kingdom, Muntadhir, falls in love with a man art arms. Dammit why can't you all just let them be happy! And wait, in the last book didn't we find out that Jamshid has even more secrets about his person that even he is probably unaware of...? I had to find out more, and I do wish it took less that 20 chapters to unfold! But there is so much to unfold in a place where you arrange marriages for political reasons, and when everyone is lying to each other - things get messy in a great bit hurry.

Meanwhile back in the small desert town of Bir Nabat, the exiled prince finally seems to have stopped getting regular visits from assassins. He's knuckled down in serious service to the community as an irrigator and well builder and is starting to bring prosperity to a place that was dwindling into the dust. Less said about magical water powers the better, but everyone close to him knows that he doesn't come up for air nearly enough to seem.. normal, and he's awfully good at falling asleep in random places and accidentally waking up having "found" a brand new spring.

And then one of his rich cousins turns up with a year's worth of taxes in cursed salt, that only someone with their bloodline can return to Daevabad, and if it doesn't get there then there might be military retribution so .. he's wrangled back to his home city, consequences be damned.

Seems that everyone is preparing for the biggest festival in decades, and also that everyone who ever wanted to attack anyone is waiting for that time to do all their "plans".

Nahri petitions her father-in-law Ghassan, to bankroll a rebuild of the hospital her people once used, and to be able to treat the half-blood Shafit there as well as anybody else. She and Ali are working to try and patch up relations within the city, but their idealism can only get people so far..

Civil unrest is at an all time high, and meanwhile, plotting in the background Manizheh has her own plans, and central to them is re-re-resurrecting Darayavahoush. Again. Poor b*stard. We get to find a bit more about the history and magic of the land, the nature of Ifrits and the Marid.

Oooh this gets messy. I'm not a super fan of battles, but I do like big reveals. It's tense and frustrating when you have enough information to cobble together what's going on, but the characters haven't been told yet. Why do revolutions have to be so messy!!? That poor library. That tower... hey people were using that! I might ned a bit of a break before I delve into future volumes.

Content Warnings

brynalexa's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I was consistently shocked through the entire book. The story never goes where you’re expecting it to. Somehow a cast of treacherous characters making terrible decisions works. Brilliant.

Content Warnings

madamenovelist's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark sad tense slow-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

4.5

Content Warnings

laurenkimoto's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

wow I’ve been reading too much contemporary romance that I forgot that high fantasy has themes and/or acts of genocide</>spoiler

Content Warnings

More...