Best example? I finished this book and I still don’t know what the difference between a djinn and a daeva. Things don’t get explained until very late in the game, and even then, not explained fully. Every single piece of information we receive is either negated or muddled. There was no solid ground for me as I reader to cling to. When I say that this book failed to do what the majority of books do in general, I mean that this book seemed only to confuse. Be aware that the podcast does have spoilers, but I’ll keep this review spoiler-free. Now, this book was read for the Pages and Pause Screen podcast where myself and co-host Ally go super in-depth on the problems we had with this book. In fact, City of Brass failed to do what the majority of books do, period. Unfortunately, City of Brass failed to do what Beasts Made of Night did so well.

I knew I wanted to read it the moment I laid eyes on the gorgeous cover and then learning the book doesn’t follow the typical Eurocentric fantasy standard? I excitedly thought this would be a fantastic new story in the same vein as Beasts Made of Night. That even the cleverest of schemes can have deadly consequences.I have held onto The City of Brass by SA Chakraborty for almost a year after receiving an advanced copy from Book Expo of America. That magic cannot shield her from the dangerous web of court politics. And when Nahri decides to enter this world, she learns that true power is fierce and brutal. In that city, behind gilded brass walls laced with enchantments, behind the six gates of the six djinn tribes, old resentments are simmering. For the warrior tells her a new tale: across hot, windswept sands teeming with creatures of fire, and rivers where the mythical marid sleep past ruins of once-magnificent human metropolises, and mountains where the circling hawks are not what they seem, lies Daevabad, the legendary city of brass, a city to which Nahri is irrevocably bound. But she knows better than anyone that the trade she uses to get by-palm readings, zars, healings-are all tricks, sleights of hand, learned skills a means to the delightful end of swindling Ottoman nobles.īut when Nahri accidentally summons an equally sly, darkly mysterious djinn warrior to her side during one of her cons, she’s forced to accept that the magical world she thought only existed in childhood stories is real. Certainly, she has power on the streets of 18th century Cairo, she’s a con woman of unsurpassed talent.

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty