24th finished book of the year: The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
4.25 ⭐️ - An interesting and very enjoyable story and pulls from Islamic mythology in a fresh feeling 18th century setting.
If we're honest with ourselves, it doesn't feel like there's much racial diversity in romantasy. We see book after book of white cis characters, in fantasy settings which feel generally Western (more often and not an Alt Historical Britain) and while this doesn't make those books any less enjoyable, it's sad that it feels so fresh and novel to read a book like this, where we get a window into Middle Eastern culture, with lavish detail and mythology.
Set in 18th centry Egypt, we get the context of the French and Ottoman conflict at the time in Cairo, but this is only touched on for what feels like a moment before we're swept into a the hidden magical world of djinn (or daeva, to some - they get touchy, we're told!), ifrit, marid, and more. The world building here is gorgeously rich, blurring the lines of historical fiction and fantasy to create fantastical alternate history where djinn have continued to live in secluded magical cities, with their own human-adjacent culture, castes, and beliefs.
If you aren't particularly familiar with Middle Eastern religious culture and mythology - and I'll admit this includes me - you'll find your vocabulary failing you at times. Thankfully there's a very helpful table of words at the back of the book (I was thankful that the Kobo's word lookup includes Google!) and it's genuinely fun for the language nerd in me that it made me want to research terms I found.
I really liked the fact that that while Nahri (FMC) does experience revelations and delves into her own hidden history, there's not the sometimes very predictable feeling 'surprise, you're special and now you're a badass bitch with untold magic' feeling that comes with a lot of the books I've read lately. Nhari, above all, remains feeling human; despite realising her potential, she struggles, fails, and grows slowly. If there's a term for this as a trope, add it to my top ten, because it's so much more interesting to see actual slow growth, than sudden demi-god status!
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