Despite its wickedness, Ali loved his city.
The City of Brass
by S.A. Chakraborty
Genre: YA Fantasy
About: Nahri is a thief trying to make ends meet in Cairo. She dreams of studying medicine because, as good as she is at stealing, she's even better at healing. Nahri doesn't know how exactly but she's able to sense illness. It's a gift that quickly turns into a curse when, during a harmless scam, she accidently reawakens a djinn. And contrary to the legends he isn't about to grant her wishes, in fact he might just get her killed.
The Good
I got into the story pretty much from the moment we arrived in Daevabad, and not a page before. The city is brimming with magic and holds so much intrigue for the reader. I found the politics fascinating, the action truly exciting and I loved all the strange curses and rituals that filled the place. It felt like I was in a magical city that was both exciting and terrifying at the same time.
The characters are also fantastic. Nahri is funny and easy to like. Dara is complicated and awe-inspiring. Ali, well, I loved him more for the bond he had with his brother and books than anything else. And the baddies are good too. The ifrit aren't around much, but when they are, they can be very compelling. The mystery behind how all these characters are woven together and what will come from their relationships is what really drove me through the story and what makes me need to read the second book.
The Bad
The first half of the book is slow to get through. Or at least I struggled. There is certainly a lot of action and I liked Nahri and Dara's dynamic, but I just found the getting to Daevabad a bit of a long journey. Bogged down probably by all the new terms and history we were being taught along the way. Chakraborty's world-building is truly great, but the way it's told to the reader is confusing and off-putting at times. There are all these different tribes, languages, terms and magic to get to grips with - I hated flicking to the back of the book to look at the glossary as it disrupts the flow of reading but it felt necessary to do a lot of the time. Of course by the end of the book I understood everything, but it made the first 200 to 300 pages not as enjoyable to read.
The Somewhat Iffy
Ali's character is introduced with him helping a rebel group and this plot point is important for character development and giving us some more context to the world, but it doesn't play much of a role in the overall story. At least not in this book. It feels like this particular storyline gets side-lined and eventually fades out after burning so brightly at the beginning.
Overall
If you make it to Daevabad, you'll find a story with so many great characters, a rich world and twists upon twists. It's action-packed, it has a tonne of intrigue and it's, in a word, magical.
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