26th finished book of the year: The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty

2 ⭐️ - The engaging plot of the first book slowed during the second and now crawls in this final book in the trilogy to an unsatisfying end

I’ll allow that perhaps the issue I found with The Daevabad Trilogy was just page creep, with the feeling of pacing becoming slower and slower the more pages were added. While the second book’s 20% length increase being almost justified given the large span of time it covered, this time round we’ve almost eight-hundred pages used to cover a very short period of time.

I’ll be honest, I lost interest a number of times and had to really force myself to finish this book. I did actively want to find out what happened in the end, but I can’t claim to have been remotely satisfied with it when I got there.

There’s slow-burn romance and then there’s whatever this was, which was barely romance at all. 

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25th finished book of the year: The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty

3.5 ⭐️ - While the setting and plot was still good, the pacing didn't feel as engaging this time around

I went into this book quite excited after the first and while it was interesting to continue following the characters, and it maintained a lot of the same charm, it was just a bit too slow and heavy for my tastes. There wasn't anything specifically wrong about it, but between splitting the book into three characters perspectives and there being lots of new characters introduced, it felt over-packed and a bit meandering.

The pacing picked up towards the end of the book, but because the climax was fairly clearly telegraphed, it felt like most of the pages up until that point were just delaying the expected events. The characters develop a little, and we see some interesting growth from them along the way. There's also some unexpected gains and losses, which keep you on your foes - but again, these are mainly at the end.

I'll be reading the third book, if only for completion, but I can't say I'm as excited this time around.

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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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