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wordrevel's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
slow-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
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, Blood, and Trafficking
Moderate: Racial slurs, Slavery, and Murder
Minor: Rape and War
chattycali's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
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
4.75
One of my favorite books in a long time. The main characters development is just omg the best thing ever. The ending will make you buy the rest of the series.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Torture, and Xenophobia
nytephoenyx's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
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
4.0
The City of Brass is a refreshing YA fantasy story. This is one of those series that has garnered so much hype over the last few years, and it is well-deserved. There are still a lot of familiar (and tired) tropes, but the world is different and the magic excellent… and I really enjoyed the way Chakraborty slowly peeled back bits and pieces of the land’s history.
Nahri is an interesting protagonist. She has some snark and big dreams and is surviving by her wits alone – fairly common in a YA fantasy heroine. She’s likable enough, but I think that The City of Brass benefits from being multiple POV.. I think on their own, both Nahri and Ali would have gotten tiresome, especially in such a long books. Ali is pretentious but kind. He has spent most of his life training to guard his brother, who will someday be the king of Daevabad. Nahri has lived on the streets in the human world most her life until she accidentally raises Dara. The two together compliment each other well – one with a well of understanding about the world and one who is slowly learning it.
As is to be expected in YA fantasy, there is a love triangle. I found it fairly inconsequential and annoying – it neither added to the story nor took away from it too much, although that may change as the trilogy goes on. If you don’t particularly care for the romance, it’s easy enough to ignore up until near the end where it becomes pretty important for a few scenes. The action took a long time coming, but I really liked the way Chakraborty developed Nahri’s magic. Unlike most characters in her position, Nahri struggles to pick up the art and makes major mistakes. It’s refreshing to see a Chosen One style character treated in that way – not everything came to her perfectly.
It’s the world of The City of Brassi that captured me most as a reader. This novel uses Arab mythology and tradition to build a world that starts in Cairo, Egypt and expands to a djinn city. Chakraborty explores legends around the djinn in a new, refreshing light while weaving in modern issues. There were a lot of things introduced in this novel that I’m hoping will be expanded upon and revisited as the story goes one.
If you have been sitting on The City of Brass, I highly recommend giving it a read. The world is interesting and alluring. Even though thesis of the book may be off-putting, the story itself captures the imagination and it’s easy to get invested.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, Torture, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Colonisation
Moderate: Genocide, Racism, Religious bigotry, and Alcohol
Minor: Racial slurs
dariaklind's review against another edition
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, and Blood
Moderate: Slavery
Minor: Rape
_savannahreads_'s review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
fast-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
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Grief, and Gaslighting
Minor: Rape and Terminal illness
achingallover's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Genocide, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Grief, Religious bigotry, and Fire/Fire injury
bluejayreads's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I'm struggling with what to say about this book. It was good. It wasn't as gripping and engrossing as I'd hoped, but it was still perfectly readable. I just had a few issues, which I want to get out of the way first. (Also, fair warning: This is a really long book and this review may get long too.)
One: Dara (the djinn that Nahri accidentally summons) refuses to tell Nahri anything for no discernable reason. At one point Nahri actually has to threaten to let herself get eaten by monsters to convince him to tell her anything. I have no idea what his purpose is in keeping her in the dark about the family she's supposedly part of and the society he wants her to join, and knowing a lot of these non-secrets would have actually been helpful. The book tries to make a romance between the two of them but it was mostly based on "he's hot" and it felt forced to me. He seemed irritatingly tropey at the beginning and I only tolerated him because Nahri liked him a lot, but I outright hated him at the end.
Two: There's a lot of politicking in this book, but the essential conflict is Nahri, a con woman used to deciding her own fate and scheming for her coin, being stripped of any agency over her own life by people who have decided that her family heritage and what they think that means for her take precedence over anything she might want, say, think, or feel. It wasn't bad from a story point of view, but it was a case where I got so frustrated with Nahri being unable to wrest any agency away from these people that I almost put it down from sheer rage.
Despite how annoyed I got with politicking in Dune, I didn't mind it that much in this book. Well, I did a bit in the beginning, but as I grew to like the characters more I minded it less. Which is a good thing, because despite some magic, some fights, and one assassin, the majority of the book is politics. The plot consists of a blend of Daevabad politics and Nahri fighting for some agency, so if you can't tolerate the politics at least a little you won't like this book. But on the bright side, they're magic politics about djinn, so slightly less boring than regular politics.
Ali, a djinn prince in Daevabad, is a point-of-view character, and at first he bored me to death. Compared with Nahri and her magic and adventures, the palace niceties and politics in his sections were pretty bland. He also started out as a wide-eyed innocent kid taking his first steps into adult responsibilities, and that was a little grating, but he got wise pretty quick and I liked him and Nahri about equally by about halfway through. I enjoyed their friendship a lot, actually, and I hope it continues in the rest of the series.
I love how steeped this story is in Arabic culture. Unlike the author, I'm not a convert to Islam, but between my research into Islam and my studies of the Arabic language I understood all of the terms mentioned and could even spell most of them, which made me feel pretty proud of myself. Plus (as you might have guessed by the fact that I've studied Islam despite not being Muslim and am teaching myself Arabic) Middle Eastern and especially Islamic culture is fascinating to me, and I love worlds set there - even though this story mostly took place in the fictional djinn city of Daevabad as opposed to a real-world setting, it was still unquestionably an Arabic world.
Up until the very end, I was on the fence about whether I'd continue reading the series. It wasn't a bad read, it just didn't grip me as much as I would have liked. But I really like the world, I can't wait until Nahri finally snaps and unleashes hell on these people, and the ending picked up steam and left me with enough unanswered questions to be interested in continuing. If nothing else, my library has the rest of the series on audiobook too, so they'll at least be reasonably interesting work reading.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, and Blood
Minor: Rape
moooooshell's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Genocide, Racism, Violence, Blood, and Murder
Moderate: Self harm, Sexism, and Religious bigotry
kelpmattson's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
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? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Blood
Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Gore, Violence, Medical content, and Grief
claudiamacpherson's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
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
3.0
This book was recommended on booktok, and I love stories incorporating mythologies from different cultures, so I decided to give it a shot...but honestly it fell a bit short for me. The premise was interesting and I enjoyed the beginning, but the middle and end of the story lost me a bit. There were a lot of characters and families and backstories that I had trouble keeping track of (though I know that’s partly because I was listening to the audiobook rather than reading it). For the most part, I liked Nahri and Ali as characters, but the prejudices and feuds between all the different groups became frustrating and tiring to read. Booktok recommended this as having enemies-to-lovers trope, but I’m still honestly not sure which couple it’s supposed to be (I’m hoping for Nahri/Ali because I didn’t like the other guy). I assume it’s developed more in the other books in this series. The book held my attention just enough for me to get through this book, but I don’t know if I’ll finish the rest of the series.
Happy ending meter (no specific spoilers, just the general vibe):This is only the first book I’m the trilogy, so of course the ending isn’t a neat wrap-up, and it’s definitely not happy.
Happy ending meter (no specific spoilers, just the general vibe):
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Genocide, Slavery, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, and Murder
Minor: Cursing and Rape