Reading With Tyler

Name: The City of Brass
Series: The Davebad Trilogy
Author: Shannon Chakraborty
Publisher: HarperVoyager
Format: Kindle (through Kindle Unlimited)
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Romance
Spice Rating: 🌶️

Rating: (Actual: 3.75)

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Review:

I’m not even sure if I know why The City of Brass has been a book I’ve wanted to read for so long anymore… It feels like I heard about it a while ago and wanted to read it but never got round to it. Finally, I did!

Perhaps, I chose the wrong time to read this book because I thought I was out of a reading slump, but part way through the same things were happening as with the other fantasy books I was reading and I feared perhaps I was still in the slump. Well, if I was it doesn’t matter because I pushed through and the last 25% had me on the edge of my seat.

I think The City of Brass has a lot of world building to get through, a lot of lore to make you aware of, and if you’re (like me apparently) pretty bad at picking up context clues some of the words used may be a mystery to you as you’re reading… Abba. It was Abba for me, I didn’t realise this was a title at first, and then I thought it meant ruler… it took a friend pointing out that it meant Father / Dad that I realised that only this characters children called him Abba… shame on me.

We follow two POVs – Nahri and Ali – and for a portion of the book it feels like you’re following two separate stories. At one point I thought Ali’s story was in the past, and we were going to learn something in it about Dara or Nahri’s family. But when everything starts coming together and you find out more… that’s when you realise that everything isn’t as it seems… I liked that!

The romance I wasn’t sold on – at all. I feel like it could have not been there and the story would have been the same – though I’m aware that in a couple of situations, love was a driving force so I know I’m technically wrong. I’m just saying I feel like the story wouldn’t have suffered. I don’t know if the romance is going to be more involved in the trilogy as it goes on, but we’ll see… right now I almost think it would kind of ruin things if it was, but I am not making a final judgement!

Despite my inability to pick up on context clues and struggling a bit as a result of it, and not really loving the romance, I really did like this world! And I’m so intrigued by the story being told! The ending felt like all hell breaking loose and so I honestly have no idea where book 2 is going to take this story next… but I will absolutely be reading on.

Was it a 5 star, game changing read, like I had hoped? No. But I do believe that to be partially my fault (okay, mostly, almost entirely, my fault). But from the half way mark until it picked up again around 75% through the book I was losing interest steadly and wasn’t wanting to pick it up. On top of that, I didn’t like the romance, I wasn’t sold on it. So, I love the characters and the story has me intrigued to continue (I also really liked Jamshid! But he’s one of the only side characters I did actually like)…

So, I am sad that it didn’t meet my expectations, but I still have positive thoughts about this book! I still recommend it though, because I think if you know you’re going into a book that has a lot of information and settings and lore to get across to you in the first book, you won’t lose interest like I did.

“Often the mightiest things have the humblest beginnings.”