Reviews with content warning for Alcoholism - The Kingdom of Copper

Disclaimer *this is a spoilery rambling of my feelings, no professional review here*

it took me two months to finish this book and no need to say it was tremendously disappointing.
too many conveniences esp. the last sixth of the book.

I just wanna fathom why do authors give their main characters centuries to die and don't even kill them (ahm Muntadhir) I hate this soo much.

And even though I love him in TCOB, I loved to hate Montadhir in this book.
The author did a good job showing how being a spoiled brat who's indulgent in extravagance, sins, and sumptuous luxuries make his heart rot in Dissatisfaction، and start desiring harams/ wrongdoings ( his whole relationship with Jamshid)
قال تعالى:(إِنَّكُمۡ لَتَأۡتُونَ ٱلرِّجَالَ شَهۡوَةٗ مِّن دُونِ ٱلنِّسَآءِۚ بَلۡ أَنتُمۡ قَوۡمٞ مُّسۡرِفُونَ) (81)

Also, his greed over the throne even though his brother didn't show any interest.

and this man (Muntadhir) btw reminds me of an Abbasi Poet named "Dik al-Jinn", he resembles him so much in his unfaithfulness and desires except Muntadhir is no poet.

also, there were some expressions the characters did that made me roll my eyes -yeah like this one-
, because the Arabic culture is different from the English so why use English expressions!!?
I guess with all this research that the authors did I'm still being greedy?!

I still didn't like that the author made Muntadihr and Jamshid qu**r!
bad.. since they were actually my favorite characters and I loved their friendship in TCOB, but alas!

but the good part here is I started loving Ali more than in the first book. also an unpopular opinion but I still adore Dara and I really wished he would end up with Nahri.

guess I'm continuing since I have the last book.

Content Warnings

claudiamacpherson's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional 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

4.0

Content Warnings

readwithria's review against another edition

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adventurous 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

3.5

Kingdom of Copper improved upon an already interesting world.

I’m not usually a big fan of long time skips, I think they’re often used to forcibly create unknown information, BUT this book did an incredible job of acknowledging that time had passed without the time passage being the conflict. The characters were able to grow off page and return to the story more sure of themselves and their places in the world. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and think that it was a great choice!

This book brings in Dara as a POV character and for me, that was the hardest part of reading the book. I did not enjoy reading his chapters, and I usually would stop reading for the day once I got to a Dara chapter.

the chapters once he has realized how ruthless Manizheh is were even harder to read because he knows that she’s willing to hurt innocent people, he doesn’t like it, but he goes along with it anyway

I think that the pacing of this book worked much better than City of Brass. I also liked the fact that Nahri had grown into herself and had a lot more agency in this book. Her comfort with being the Banu Nahida was apparent, and her relationships with the other members of the palace felt believable given the years she had spent there as the wife to the Emir.

Ali had definitely grown a lot between books one and two, but his motivation felt a little weak to me.

I don’t fully understand where his shift in beliefs about the Daeva tribe came from. He went from hating their religion and their beliefs about the shafit to not seeming to care, and that shift felt like it came out of nowhere

My favorite non-POV characters have to be Jamshid and Zaynab. They both have so much gumption and a strong sense of who they are and where they fit in the world. It’s refreshing to see, especially given how much Nahri and Ali are changing their place in the world. I could talk about them forever, but this review is already getting long so I’m going to wrap it up here. I look forward to seeing how the trilogy concludes in Empire of Gold.

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