The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy #1)

For fans of mythology, fantasy, and historical fiction, this is a great read. It took me awhile to get into it fully because I’m not a big fan of action packed road trips (which made up a fair sized portion of the beginning of the book), but once the story got to where it was going and the two pov characters met, I became hooked. However, unlike in the summery amazon gives for this novel, the Suleiman mentioned is not Sultan Suleiman I “the Magnificent” of the Ottoman Empire, but the prophet Suleiman, also known as Solomon. As disappointed as I was to figure this out, and no matter how little it related to “A Song of Ice and Fire”/”Game of Thrones,” also unlike their description, it was a very enjoyable read and I found I couldn’t put it down once I was about a third of the way through. Chakraborty makes the world she writes about come alive with a well fleshed out fictional history of the civilization and characters she created, and the political intrigues running through the book make each chapter ending a true cliffhanger.

What a fantastic debut novel. I expect this will be on many awards lists next year. I will certainly nominate it.

Two things really leap out at me. First, the world-building is superb. The author is very good at showing, not telling, and there is a lot of mystery hinted as there is a great deal the characters themselves do not know about how the world works. It seems marids are as mysterious to djinn as djinn initially are to the reader. I am really looking forward to learning more in the next book. The Arabian Nights sort of setting is relatively uncommon in fantasy literature, and it’s nice to see more writing in that area (a tip of the hat here to Saladin Ahmed’s Throne of the Crescent Moon).

Second, the characters are fascinating and sympathetic. This is particularly noteworthy as many of the characters are at odds with one another, yet I sympathized with each of them, even when they were in direct conflict! These are complicated, deeply human (in the emotional sense – they are nominally a variety of fantasy races) characters with strengths and weaknesses. They make mistakes, and their current states reflect that, but in each case you can understand why they did what they did. There is one scene where two of the main characters are doing their level best to kill one another. I loved both characters, and couldn’t really say that either was in the wrong. That’s a difficult task for a novelist to pull off, and a great achievement for a debut novel.

I was really intrigued by the concept of this book, but ultimately underwhelmed. It felt long, but like not much happened. Most of the time it felt like characters were just explaining things to each other for the whole book – meanwhile, not much was going on in terms of plot. There was a 50 or so page section at the end that got more interesting, but then nothing was resolved and instead the ending felt like more set up for the second book in this trilogy. I didnt end up caring much about any of the characters and I didnt think the author was very good at setting the scene and describing what was going on in a way that I could visualise. Overall, disappointing and I wont be reading the second part of this trilogy.

The City of Brass was a book I recognized from the cover but hadn’t heard many people talking about it. And then all of a sudden in the past month I was seeing it everywhere and it was getting rave reviews. So I decided it was time to request it from the library. And I’m happy I did!

The main characters are all written so well. I felt like Ii easily knew them and I couldn’t help but love Nahri, Dara, and even Ali by the end. Nahri is such a badass character. When we first meet her she’s living in Cairo, Egypt stealing and conning people to survive. We learn she has this magical healing power but she doesn’t know where it came from or even where she comes from. I think her motives and her character arc are realistic and I easily rooted for her the entire way through the story. I do not typically have fictional literary crushes, but Dara is definitely an exception. I enjoyed his individual plot when it came to his past and his own character arc but also him and Nahri had amazing chemistry. They stole the show every time they had a scene together. I liked their friendship and I really loved their romance. I would have loved to see more. The one main character I wasn’t a huge fan of at first was Ali. He kind of drove me insane but by the end of the story he did warm up to me a bit more. I am not sure how I completely feel about him but he doesn’t annoy me as much anymore either.

I love that on the cover and in the story it is shown/described that Nahri wears a head wrap (and even there’s a part where she wears one that covers everything but her eyes) because there isn’t many fantasy or even contemporary stories, at least in YA where that kind of representation is front and center in the story. I am so happy for any readers who will see themselves on the cover or even in Nahri herself. She’s an amazing character to relate to because of her strength and determination. Representation matters and I think this is a great example of that.

The plot was an incredibly rich and it was thick with these beautiful Middle Eastern settings. I have not read a lot of fantasy (or really, any genre) set in the Middle East so this whole atmosphere is very new to me. The added on Middle Eastern mythology, food, clothing, and culture made the reading experience come alive way more than a lot of fantasy novels I’ve read, especially the first in a series. I loved learning about this world and it’s one of the best fantasy worlds I’ve read in a very long time. However, the pacing for this book did have me feeling a bit nervous I was entering in a reading slump territory. It took me longer than it typically would for me to really get hooked into the story and I found myself having to put my phone across the room so I wouldn’t let myself get distracted at every new chapter. It wasn’t until about 250 pages into the story where I actually felt hooked and needed to keep reading. I think taking your time reading the story may be the best way to read it because there are so many important details in the different djinn tribes and it could have been confusing if I tried speeding through the story.

The writing, like I mentioned earlier, is so well done with the setting and fantastical world Nahri is thrown into. I also love a lot of the dialogue, especially between Nahri and Dara because of their playful banter and how comfortable they are with each other. Although I enjoyed a lot of the dialogue and I loved the world, I also felt a bit of a disconnect emotionally when it came to the characters. It was weird, because on one hand I liked them a lot and I thought they were well written, but there was something detaching myself from being emotionally invested as much as I normally would have been. I think it may be because I was so focused on the political intrigue, the different tribes of djinn, and even the history of the djinn and the characters. As I was reading I noticed the kindle e-book edition was only two dollars so I snagged it immediately. So I plan on re-reading it before the release of the second one and I am hoping now that I have read it once I can be more emotionally invested in the next read.Unfortunately, that plus the pacing is why I gave it four stars instead of the five I would have given it if I didn’t have those issues.

I highly recommend this book. I think it is a beautiful fantasy story and I am definitely reading the second book the moment it comes out because I need to know what is going to happen next. If you’re a fan of the fantasy genre, worlds rich with culture and mythology, an amazing cast of characters, and some terrifying villains, I recommend picking up The City of Brass.

Actual rating: 2.5 out of 5

The City of Brass is another of those novels that disappointed me because I wanted to fall in love with it. Yet, sadly, I find that I am incredibly on the fence about whether or not I actually enjoyed reading this novel.

To begin with the positive, The City of Brass really stands out stylistically due to its setting and diversity. The novel is set in Northern Africa, moving from Cairo to the fantasy city of Daevabad. Because of this, it had a very different feel to your typical YA fantasy novel. The cast was entirely made up people of colour and the setting was deeply inspired by myths and legends of the East, from flying carpets, to wish granting djinni and fiery ifreet.

While it was this world-building that attracted me to the novel, it was not without issue. Chakraborty bombarded the reader with all manner of concepts. While the novel does contain a brief glossary in the back to explain certain words, it does not help the reader to keep track of the allegiances of the several daeva tribes, each with their own set of slurs to describe their rivals. I was over half way through the novel when I realised that djinn was being used both as an insult and the name of a religion, and that daeva was sometimes used to describe one particular tribe but other times to describe the race as a whole!

While some readers I am sure will dig how immersive and detailed Chakraborty’s world is, I expect an equal number will find themselves very lost. Personally, I found the story to be a bit of a mess of subplots – many of which presently seem to be going nowhere and could really have been edited back to better streamline this first instalment.

Yet my biggest issue with the story was its pacing. For a debut novel, The City of Brass is very long and took well over 200 pages to find its feet. Nahri and Dara take a horribly long time to reach Daevabad and their journey becomes a repetitive cycle of bickering and the odd Ifreet attack. Although the novel rapidly speeds up in its second act, I felt that it then flipped too far the other way. A lot of character development occurs off-page, only to be related to the reader later, and Nahri and Ali’s friendship is exposited more than it is seen.

The ending of the novel is rather abrupt, though did culminate in a rather surprising incident (no spoilers here) which left me curious to see what will happen next. Yet, at the same time, I was a little disappointed. The final battle really comes out of nowhere and seems to be sparked by the tiniest of arguments. It also leaves many loose threads hanging – especially with regards to the Ifreet who virtually fade from the plot after the half-way mark.

In terms of character, I was also left very disappointed. While Nahri initially seemed to be intelligent and self-sufficient, she lost all of this as soon as she left Cairo. In the second half of the story, she becomes a bit of a shrinking violent. Despite her high talk about scamming the royal family, she is virtually dependant on Ali and Dara, does not develop any new skills of her own and ultimately proves to be unable to hold her own against the wills of the male protagonists.

Ali and Dara had their own problems. While Dara started out more likeable than the stuffy, religious prince, this flipped once all characters were introduced to each other in Daevabad. While I did find the differing ways that Ali and Nahri viewed Dara to be interesting, he grew increasingly violent and detestable in the second act. While Ali was naive and prone to doing very stupid things, he was at least more likeable. However, I wasn’t sure why every other character was so insulting of his religion. While he was described by others as being a zealot, this didn’t really come across in the text.

Anyhow, I think that about covers it. While I am curious to see where this goes next, I was disappointed by this book. While The City of Brass was diverse and complex, the novel was badly paced and some of its themes were made more complicated than they really needed to be. Hopefully, the next instalment will iron out some of these issues.

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