Fantasy Discussion Group…

The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy, #1)

S.A. Chakraborty

Start date: April 1, 2019

Finish date: April 30, 2019

Discussion: Book of the Month

Why we're reading this: Goodreads Book of the Month, April 2019
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What Members Thought

Apr 10, 2020 Olivia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

I liked this a lot, not as much as I thought I would, mainly because there are some pacing issues.

In The City of Brass we follow two characters:

Nahri, a con artist with mysterious healing abilities, who grew up in the streets of 18th century Cairo. She doesn't believe in magic until she accidentally summons a djinn (as you do!) who tells her that she's a shafit - half human, half djinn.

And Prince Ali, second son to the king of Daevebad, who is torn between his loyalty to his family and his fight ...more

15 likes · Like · see review

Mar 27, 2019 Bridgit rated it liked it

Shelves: 2023, own, audio, series-leaders

Officially a DNF. I have probably abandoned less than 10 books in my life. Just couldn't get past how boring this book was and that it had already felt interminable, with still 70% to go. ...more

9 likes · Like · see review

Apr 25, 2019 Ale rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: female-author, published-in-2010s, american-authors, contemporary-author, race-issues, fantasy, teen-and-young-adult, gender-politics, netgalley, kindle

Read as part of the r/fantasy Book Bingo Challenge 2019 for the "Goodreads book of the month" category. Hard Mode for this square meant taking part in the discussion, and the final post is now up.

I struggled to rate this for a number of different reasons. On the one hand, an #ownvoices novel that features a world of djinn and politics and characters of colour, Islamic religion and curses. On the other hand, a YA novel that doesn't really seem to break out of the same tired tropes we've seen bef Read as part of the r/fantasy Book Bingo Challenge 2019 for the "Goodreads book of the month" category. Hard Mode for this square meant taking part in the discussion, and the final post is now up.

I struggled to rate this for a number of different reasons. On the one hand, an #ownvoices novel that features a world of djinn and politics and characters of colour, Islamic religion and curses. On the other hand, a YA novel that doesn't really seem to break out of the same tired tropes we've seen before. Sure, you can put a veil on Nahri all you want, but that doesn't make her any less of a special snowflake protagonist with a super secret backstory and ~mystical powers~. Oh and a hot bad boy love interest.

See, what The City of Brass actually wants to be is a sleek, smart novel about a girl who finds out that her small healing powers are actually so much greater than that, who has to travel to a magical realm and claim her birthright, all the while assailed from all sides by foes and danger. It's supposed to be a book about how Nahri uses her street smarts to outwit a society of haughty djinn driven by blood purity and ancient squabbles. It's also supposed to be a book about a second son who trains in a religious order for a life dedicated to serving his elder brother, the heir to the throne, but who finds himself compelled to the protect the lives of shafit (half-djinn half-human), even at the expense of inciting conflict with his family.

Instead... instead you have Nahri, a young woman who's grown in Cairo and used her magical healing abilities to bluff, trick and steal her way to a life of relative freedom (albeit poor, but at least she's not married against her will!). Until she uses a spell she barely understands and ends up summoning a djinn, whereupon she learns that she might actually be the last known member of a family of powerful djinn which used to rule Daevabad, the City of Brass. So, armed with a Hot Badboy Bodyguard, Nahri must make her way across a desert and then survive court politics, all the while seemingly falling for a guy who treats her like dirt/gaslights her constantly and then somehow forgetting everything that helped her survive in Cairo. Meanwhile, Ali is the only decent person in an entire court of djinn, but that makes him gullible, so he spends a lot of his time trying to right his own decisions, only to have them blow up in his face. But of the main trio, he's the only one who comes across as a decent person; he doesn't do this out of gullibility and he actually changes and grows throughout the novel.

I see what Chakraborty wants to do, but it never feels like she allows her characters to truly fail. Dara is basically meant to be some bad boy we all root for, even though he's a millennia old djinn who crushes on a teenager (look, seriously, this shit was creepy when Edward Cullen did it and the years haven't been forgiving on this trope) and because he knows better he decides to treat Nahri like a child and she somehow accepts this and then crushes on him like a lovesick puppy. Even at the end, when Dara goes full on nuclear with his ridiculous jealousy, it's just creepy, it's not romantic. At all. (view spoiler)

I don't hate YA as a genre. I try my best not to judge it by its cover, I try to think that not every YA novel needs to follow the ridiculous trope route. But sadly this time it does. I expected a lot more from The City of Brass and it just didn't deliver. I don't know how I feel about the sequel - on the one hand, the promise of a timeskip means that I can perhaps hope for some character growth. But if the endgame is really going to be Dara/Nahri, then I don't think I can really endorse that. Ultimately, I feel bad only rating it a two star, because I think we need more Muslim fantasy and we need more #ownvoices works. But The City of Brass just wasn't it. ...more

8 likes · Like · see review

Apr 19, 2019 Danielle T rated it really liked it

Shelves: debut, fantasy, asia-asian-america

I read this for r/Fantasy's goodreads book of the month for April 2019.

Really neat worldbuilding, and complex characters that interest me, though I don't know if I'd necessarily get along with any of them for extended periods of time (Nahri if anyone, but she'd probably fleece me). Dara is an ally for the most part, but he's got some shitty ideas on blood purity (could argue that's what he was raised with but when your magical being lives for millennia...?) and fantastic racism, though as I'm t ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Apr 05, 2022 Sarah rated it liked it

3.5 stars
A fun and interesting read and an intriguing world.
The characters are often frustrating with their choices and communication.
I spent much of the book concerned that Nahri would somehow heal Dara being technically "dead" as a chronic pain patient who cannot have children, I did not want them to end up together and be able to have children because of her magical healing. While several people have had medical aid to be able to have children, that is not a reality for many and it was a conc ...more

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