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A review by azrah786
The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
3.0
[This full review can also be found on my BLOG]
Back in March my 4 star rating spoke for itself, I had some issues with this book. I’ve been sat on my feelings for a good 5 months now and it hurt but I couldn’t help but knock off another star. It’s taken some time for me to finally finish putting my thoughts into words but I figured if I say my piece I can put this all behind me and not have all these feelings festering in the back of my mind.
I would like to start off by saying a (belated) MASSIVE MASSIVE thank you to Harper Voyager UK and Netgalley for granting my wish and giving me the opportunity to read The Empire of Gold early.
From the first time I heard about the Daevabad books I had a feeling they would mean something special to me, but I never expected them to wedge themselves SO DEEPLY into my heart. This (not so) little trilogy has very much taken over my heart and soul over the last year and I’ve formed some wonderful friendships through these books, so of course The Empire of Gold was one of my most anticipated release of the year! And let me just say what a finale, trust me when I say this book will have you feeling EVERY POSSIBLE emotion ever.
Shannon’s writing and storytelling is as magical as ever. In this final instalment we get to explore more about various aspects of this world that were only touched on before – venturing outside of Daevabad, meeting some new faces that give a bigger insight into the history and lore of the world, and some long asked questions are finally answered. Though I think I’ve made it obvious that this book was not my favourite.
[Please be aware that from here onwards this is probably spoiler territory. And apologies if this is more of a ramble than a review.]
My biggest issue whilst reading was the fact that I actually S T R U G G L E D to get through the first chunk of the book. And by chunk I mean more than half of it because part 2 is SO LONG that I forgot the book was actually written in parts lmao.
This came down to two major things.
1 - A certain “romance”
I have come to learn that romance can either make or break a book for me a lot of the time, and this time it was the latter..
Throughout this series I have personally read the relationship between Nahri and Ali as a platonic one, (Ali’s little crush aside.) That bffs borderline siblings vibe relationship.
Now during a period where he is mourning his brother, Ali 2 seconds later would be ogling at that same brother’s wife/widow – I’m sorry but doesn’t that sound messed up!?!?!? Furthermore, his devoutness has been such a large part of his character throughout the series yet he was constantly lusting over Nahri in this book – and I mean almost every other page – and that didn’t sit well with me at all.
And with Nahri, up until this point I’ve never read any of her actions to show that she reciprocated feelings like this for him. To me this honestly came out of nowhere and there were times when she was really acting out of character. Hence the romance felt forced and felt like a way to squeeze that one “oh look one of us is going to die so we like need to get together NOW before that happens lol” trope in.
I felt like this was such a disservice to both of their characters and I was just really disappointed.
What pissed me off the most though was - did we really need Nahri, my strong fierce independent woman who don’t need no man, getting tied up in ANOTHER romantic entanglement? Especially when there were more pressing things happening which deserved more page time!!??? (More on this in a moment.)
Just ONCE I was hoping for a well developed friendship to stay that way and not get boxed in by romance, but no.
2 - Not enough of the book was focused in Daevabad where the MAJOR PLOT was actually happening!!!
Now I understand Shannon’s decision to keep the 3 original POVs but there definitely should have been a better balance. 2/3 of the book takes place outside of Daevabad – the city where the world has literally gone to shit, where most of the secondary characters are and where the primary storyline is taking place!!!!
Yes okay, there were altercations with pirates and the Ifrit and the Marid in Ali's and Nahri’s chapters, which was when the story got a little exciting on their side, but double chapters of just gallivanting down the Nile felt like a waste of page time. I mean where did all the Marid stuff actually help in that final showdown!?!??
I was way more interested in what was happening in Daevabad so was eagerly awaiting the next Dara chapter. It felt like SO MUCH was going on there and I just wish we’d gotten another perspective (Muntadhir’s or ZAYNAB’S!!) so we could have seen more. It would have helped balance the narrative out a little.
Dara’s chapters also started getting darker which added to the imbalance because they were so jarringly different to the other two POVs, and they also got physically harder and more painful to read which didn’t help with my struggle. If I didn’t have friends who’d already read the book urging me to continue I probably would have just dropped it.
This blog post written by a friend voices a lot of my other thoughts if you want to check it out, but these were my initial concerns.
The last 20-25% kind of saved the book for me. The emotions I felt reading Part 3 in particular are unmatched to anything I’ve ever read before. And one of the biggest strengths of this book was definitely Dara’s arc. However, the more time I have to think about this book the more lacklustre this conclusion seems.
Don’t get me wrong there were some wonderful scenes and quotes in this book, many that I will treasure in my heart forever. I was very much SOBBING near the end and this series will always be special to me.
It’s just that like a couple of people have pointed out, as a whole it feels as though Shannon was trying to please everyone with this finale which in my eyes was its downfall.
Back in March my 4 star rating spoke for itself, I had some issues with this book. I’ve been sat on my feelings for a good 5 months now and it hurt but I couldn’t help but knock off another star. It’s taken some time for me to finally finish putting my thoughts into words but I figured if I say my piece I can put this all behind me and not have all these feelings festering in the back of my mind.
I would like to start off by saying a (belated) MASSIVE MASSIVE thank you to Harper Voyager UK and Netgalley for granting my wish and giving me the opportunity to read The Empire of Gold early.
From the first time I heard about the Daevabad books I had a feeling they would mean something special to me, but I never expected them to wedge themselves SO DEEPLY into my heart. This (not so) little trilogy has very much taken over my heart and soul over the last year and I’ve formed some wonderful friendships through these books, so of course The Empire of Gold was one of my most anticipated release of the year! And let me just say what a finale, trust me when I say this book will have you feeling EVERY POSSIBLE emotion ever.
Shannon’s writing and storytelling is as magical as ever. In this final instalment we get to explore more about various aspects of this world that were only touched on before – venturing outside of Daevabad, meeting some new faces that give a bigger insight into the history and lore of the world, and some long asked questions are finally answered. Though I think I’ve made it obvious that this book was not my favourite.
[Please be aware that from here onwards this is probably spoiler territory. And apologies if this is more of a ramble than a review.]
My biggest issue whilst reading was the fact that I actually S T R U G G L E D to get through the first chunk of the book. And by chunk I mean more than half of it because part 2 is SO LONG that I forgot the book was actually written in parts lmao.
This came down to two major things.
1 - A certain “romance”
I have come to learn that romance can either make or break a book for me a lot of the time, and this time it was the latter..
Throughout this series I have personally read the relationship between Nahri and Ali as a platonic one, (Ali’s little crush aside.) That bffs borderline siblings vibe relationship.
Now during a period where he is mourning his brother, Ali 2 seconds later would be ogling at that same brother’s wife/widow – I’m sorry but doesn’t that sound messed up!?!?!? Furthermore, his devoutness has been such a large part of his character throughout the series yet he was constantly lusting over Nahri in this book – and I mean almost every other page – and that didn’t sit well with me at all.
And with Nahri, up until this point I’ve never read any of her actions to show that she reciprocated feelings like this for him. To me this honestly came out of nowhere and there were times when she was really acting out of character. Hence the romance felt forced and felt like a way to squeeze that one “oh look one of us is going to die so we like need to get together NOW before that happens lol” trope in.
I felt like this was such a disservice to both of their characters and I was just really disappointed.
What pissed me off the most though was - did we really need Nahri, my strong fierce independent woman who don’t need no man, getting tied up in ANOTHER romantic entanglement? Especially when there were more pressing things happening which deserved more page time!!??? (More on this in a moment.)
Just ONCE I was hoping for a well developed friendship to stay that way and not get boxed in by romance, but no.
2 - Not enough of the book was focused in Daevabad where the MAJOR PLOT was actually happening!!!
Now I understand Shannon’s decision to keep the 3 original POVs but there definitely should have been a better balance. 2/3 of the book takes place outside of Daevabad – the city where the world has literally gone to shit, where most of the secondary characters are and where the primary storyline is taking place!!!!
Yes okay, there were altercations with pirates and the Ifrit and the Marid in Ali's and Nahri’s chapters, which was when the story got a little exciting on their side, but double chapters of just gallivanting down the Nile felt like a waste of page time. I mean where did all the Marid stuff actually help in that final showdown!?!??
I was way more interested in what was happening in Daevabad so was eagerly awaiting the next Dara chapter. It felt like SO MUCH was going on there and I just wish we’d gotten another perspective (Muntadhir’s or ZAYNAB’S!!) so we could have seen more. It would have helped balance the narrative out a little.
Dara’s chapters also started getting darker which added to the imbalance because they were so jarringly different to the other two POVs, and they also got physically harder and more painful to read which didn’t help with my struggle. If I didn’t have friends who’d already read the book urging me to continue I probably would have just dropped it.
This blog post written by a friend voices a lot of my other thoughts if you want to check it out, but these were my initial concerns.
The last 20-25% kind of saved the book for me. The emotions I felt reading Part 3 in particular are unmatched to anything I’ve ever read before. And one of the biggest strengths of this book was definitely Dara’s arc. However, the more time I have to think about this book the more lacklustre this conclusion seems.
Don’t get me wrong there were some wonderful scenes and quotes in this book, many that I will treasure in my heart forever. I was very much SOBBING near the end and this series will always be special to me.
It’s just that like a couple of people have pointed out, as a whole it feels as though Shannon was trying to please everyone with this finale which in my eyes was its downfall.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Genocide, Gore, Slavery, Torture, and Violence