Reviews with content warning for Violence - The Empire of Gold

An absolutely amazing conclusion to the trilogy and my OTP got their HEA! The stakes were higher now than before but I loved the moments where they managed to just... calm down even if it felt like the calm before the storm. The pacing, the full on world-building, the development of characters I thought were not so great and didn't like from the beginning... it was all so exceptional and believable, even if for some, I went "damnit, Mrs. Chakraborty, why are you making me start to like this one??" I am going to miss this world so SO much.

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boba_n_books's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

HOLY CRAP. If I could rate this higher than 5 stars I would. This book was absolutely amazing and will be living rent-free in my mind for a long time.

I was worried this book would be too long, but when I got to the end, I didn’t want it to be over. There were plenty of tense and tearful moments, and I cherished every second of it.

My favorite thing about this entire trilogy is that no one was fully good or fully evil. Everyone has motivations for doing what they thought was right, and each and every one of them did something wrong at some point in time. I felt deeply for every character but especially for Dara, Nahri, and Ali since theirs are the perspectives we followed throughout the series.

This is definitely going down as one of my favorite books / trilogies of all time. If you love political intrigue, power dynamics, magic, and morally gray characters, give this trilogy a chance. I hope more people read it and that it goes down as a favorite for years and years to come.

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thenextbookdilemma's review against another edition

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adventurous 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

5.0

Y’all, nothing I can write can do these books justice, just please go read them!

This series is one of my favorites EVER. I feel it embedded in my heart and I mourn having finished it, I grieve the end of these characters’ stories.

This is a luscious, tangled epic fantasy inspired by the Muslim faith, ancient myths and magical djinn spirits. It will so thouroughly sweep you away through ancient Cairo to magical cities, into the clouds on flying carpets and winged beasts and into ocean depths with scaled monsters and sunken ships. It will fill you with wonder and it will squeeze your heart (and your stomach) at every point.

Nahri. A thief, a liar, a consummate survivor, she always smiles at her mark. Nahri is my favorite kind of protagonist—an acerbic, take no $hit, beat you at your own game, I don’t need a protector, kind of gal. She is a mongoose in a den of cobras (if you haven’t seen these videos, youtube them), constantly underestimated, constantly surprising people. Nahri’s story is tragic and powerful and about making a home in a place determined to crush you, and then defending that home with everything you have.

Ali. A self-righteous zealot, a misguided and privileged idealist. Ali struggles to reconcile his faith with the politics of his royal family. While initially one of my least favorite characters, I so completely enjoyed his character arc and self discovery. Ali spends this series finding out who is is, and choosing who he wants to be.

Dara. Dara’s story broke me again and again. I raged against his circumstances, past and present and yearned for a future he could deserve. Dara forces you to ask yourself many questions and reminds you that we are products of the environment we are shaped in.

This book pushes you to question what can be forgiven. What does redemption look like? Will vengeance only ever beget more vengeance? Do our differences really separate us? I love these characters so much, deep dark flaws and all, and I thank Chakraborty for taking me on this magical and devastating journey.

May the fires burn brightly for you.

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kenzninja's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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

What an incredible book!! I’ve never read a book with djinn, peris, or marid and it was so much fun to dive into this rich, unique world. I am also absolutely smitten with the main characters and was honored to follow them on their journey.

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mitacaparos's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad 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

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rinku's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Compared to the snooze fest The Kingdom of Copper was, The Empire of Gold was way more interesting and was a 3.5 stars read for me, just like The City of Brass. Instead of staying at one place and the plot barely moving forward, the story is more adventurous and brings together the open threads, even though I didn’t understand all of it.

This book follows again the three characters from last book, namely Ali, Nahri, and (sadly) Dara. Ali and Nahri are suddenly in Kairo and have to find a way back to Daevabad. Through Dara’s POV, we learn that the magic is gone there and that Manizheh is struggling to take over the city. We get some court intrigue vibes with his part of the story while Nahri and Ali experience more adventures and immediate dangers.

My biggest problem with the plot was probably that there were many things that I just didn’t understand. Maybe it’s because I got at some points really tired when reading the series, or maybe because things weren’t explained enough. It took me probably too long to understand what happened to Ali and Dara. Ali’s part of the story bored me at some points quite a lot, even though he’s my favorite character of the three; especially some of the Sobek parts were just weird (and all I could think about was hbomberguy, I’m really sorry).

In comparison, the ending was quite nice, even though I had some issues with it:

I loved that at the end, they were all back at Daevabad and that Jamshid saved the day. It was a bit cliché that the villains argue at the end, and it wasn’t really satisfying that Dara was the one killing Manizheh. Can we also talk about the fact that none of the important characters died? Of course, I’m not a fan of killing characters off just for the sake of it, but it just didn’t fell right since the stakes were so high

. What annoyed me as well was that after the final fight, we get more pages than necessary. It’s nice that

that they are introducing democracy, but I doubt that there will peace since the grievances the different tribes have won’t simply go away, I believe

Like before, my favorite characters were Nahri and Ali. At many moments in the course of the story, I just wanted to hug them since they deserve so much better. When we’re back in Kairo, I noticed how much I miss Nahri’s old self. I also love that we finally get the dynamic between them back that we had in the first book. They have so many great moments together, and

I’m so happy that Nahri chose him

. What I especially like about them is that their gender roles are kinda reversed with Ali being more emotional and Nahri being more logical. Still, Nahri’s emotions are depicted quite well.

Besides them, the other al Qahtani’s were definitely carrying this book for me. Muntadhir is still one of my favorite characters and

I was so happy that he survived

. Most of the female characters were great as well, besides Manizheh. With her, I had a problem that I had with a few characters: I couldn’t understand their motivations. Would you really feel revenge for ten generations and judge the descendants of those people for what their ancestors did? Ghassan was a more interesting villain, to be honest. I furthermore still hate Dara and it’s baffling to that some people say that he carried the series. There’s just nothing to like about him; I hate how impulsive he is and how many innocent people he hurt. I’m really not a fan of the fact that

they spared him, Nahri should’ve killed him honestly. But I guess he’s punishing himself in the end, so that’s good

I’m honestly not sure if I would recommend the Daevabad series or not. What I really liked about it were the characters, but that’s mostly it. Revenge is a big theme in this series which couldn’t catch me as much since I don’t know if it’s the right way to hate other people because for what their ancestors thousands of years ago, but oh well. Additionally, some things were just a bit too complicated, and I still don’t fully understand everything that has happened. In my opinion, this series could’ve been a duology or a trilogy with normal-length books. This whole hospital arc was so boring and could’ve been told in a few chapters. Those lengths are probably the reason why I couldn’t enjoy the series as much as I wanted to and won’t re-read it any time.

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espressoreader's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad 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 series is beautifully done. It covers uncomfortable topics such as racial diversity religious diversity, class diversity, and even sexual diversity without appearing to beat the socially woke drum. For this reason, this book actually makes a person consider these difficulties that other’s face without turning them off by making them feel drowned in a political concept, rather than in a story with dialogue. None of the characters in this book are perfect. All of them have their own individual preferences, and even prejudices regardless of how high up they are how low down they are all of them demonstrate a level of prejudice. However, this book allows you to look beyond their flaws and watch them grow above them Prince, Ali is considered to be a religious extremist. Though many, of his perceptions are not ones that I would share he holds them, and grows to respect people with whom he does not agree. I think Prince Ali is perhaps one of the most well written characters, and one that I identify with the best. He maintains his religion, understand the precepts that say some thing is wrong, and still treats those people with respect and recognizes their dignity.

Beyond this political intrigue, there is also a beautiful story line with friendship, betrayal, reconciliation and ultimately understanding. The story shows the impact of generational abuse post traumatic stress, and gaslighting. It shows the impact of unhealthy relationships at all levels, and it shows very competent people suffering from and overcoming the physical and emotional abuse.

It does all of these things, without appearing to be activist propaganda. It relates real emotion experiences and actions rather than just glossing over everything as he’s racist and he’s too religious. I find that this book was extremely respectful of all ideologies, and showed the strengths and weaknesses inherent with those ideologies, and the flawed ways they were represented by their followers. This was overall a great trilogy, and I would love to see more from this author.

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