Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

The City of Brass: A Novel by S.A. Chakraborty

57 reviews

seanml's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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

There are many conflicting words and opinions that The City of Brass brings about. The most important one though is this: promising. It's marketed as adult fantasy, and yet you'll find many instances of tropes and ideas popular in young adult literature. The person of low social class thrust into a very powerful position of luxury, the romance between a normal person and a god-like but very dangerous but VERY hot individual, a healthy dose of normal person thrust into magical world they didn't know was there a la Harry Potter. Much of the dialogue sounds very modern despite the story taking place in the 1800s and many characters being hundreds of years older than that. Moving past all that, I would still recommend this book. Chakraborty understands her world and her characters well enough to give the reader investment and interest in this world. The novel's biggest selling point is the society she creates - the conflict between a pureblood upper caste and a mixed lower caste is nothing new in literature, but Chakraborty treats the plot with precision and care. No side is made out to be a faceless villain, but there's also no preachy sense of 'both sides are equally bad' going on. There's no sense of preachiness at all: the world feels lived in and at its natural conclusion of thousands of years of buildup rather than artificially held together for the plot. The pros outweigh the cons and I hear the sequels improve in spades. 8/10.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gaslighting, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Classism, Colonisation, Genocide, Gore, Murder, and War

Moderate: Slavery, Rape, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Alcoholism, Police brutality, Racial slurs, and Racism

Minor: Outing and Homophobia

bobbyeight's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-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

5.0

I am unwell. Just couldn't put the book down, it's 1am and now I don't know what to do with my life 😂 (thankfully I have book 2 to jump into)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child death, Violence, War, Slavery, Racism, Death, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Torture, and Child abuse

Moderate: Trafficking

Minor: Rape and Death of parent

lesliehirgelt's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Death, Violence, Slavery, Racism, Blood, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Child abuse, Alcohol, Police brutality, and Classism

Minor: Drug use and Rape

ka_ke's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Gaslighting, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Misogyny, Slavery, Body horror, Classism, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Colonisation, Gore, Racism, Torture, Alcohol, and Racial slurs

Minor: Death of parent, Child death, Child abuse, Rape, and War

mdbresh's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny tense 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? Yes

4.0

Adventurous and exciting. Love the whole trilogy. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Blood, Classism, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

ellaa__'s review against another edition

• 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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Sexism, Torture, Xenophobia, Slavery, Violence, Racism, War, and Classism

Moderate: Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Vomit, Murder, Child death, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Body horror, Rape, and Racial slurs

micallab's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, War, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Rape

ash_lees_library's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence

Minor: Cursing, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Sexual content

kat1105's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Child death, Death of parent, Grief, Gaslighting, Rape, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Confinement, Death, Gore, Child abuse, Classism, Injury/Injury detail, Religious bigotry, Racism, Toxic friendship, Torture, Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Hate crime, Racial slurs, and Slavery

jasperdotpdf's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

It took me a while to really get into City of Brass but it really caught my attention toward the end and I loved it. 

The first half of this book especially is very slow, it‘s littered with worldbuilding that is, admittedly, pretty complicated. I was also so incredibly bored by Ali‘s POV until more than halfway through, mainly because it felt very isolated and it was hard to get a feel for where his part of the story was going - or at least why his POV needed to be there. 
Occasionally it felt like a bit of a chore because it‘s very densely written, but the book did a good enough job at leaving crumbs to keep me hooked until the end. 

Once I got to the end things ramped up and I think I‘ve actually lost my mind because I am dying to get to the sequel. I love how the book conveys the hardships of ruling, of dealing with a war and with rebellion, with court intrigue and the necessary sacrifices. All of the characters are wrapped up in so much shit and the fact they all have to make devastating choices to deal with it is such a strength of this book. It‘s nice to read something that doesn‘t equip its characters with copious amounts of plot-armour and arbitrarily backs them into narrative corners as a way of railroading them to the next plot point. 

I will say that this rating is probably a bit higher than it would be were I not very eager for Kingdom of Copper. City of Brass really felt like it was weighed down by the need for exposition, and I‘m hoping that that the sequel will pick off at a similar level of suspense and intrigue as this ended on and make all of the set-up worth it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, War, and Blood

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Slavery, Religious bigotry, and Torture

Minor: Rape