Reviews with content warning for Racism - The Empire of Gold

Check out my super fast turnaround on reading The Kingdom of Copper (the second book in the Daevabad trilogy) and this final installation! After it was like two years after reading The City of Brass that I finally continued with the series, I'm really proud of my "only" a couple months between these last two. Go me! Also, it was very convenient timing to jump headfirst into a 28-hour epic fantasy audiobook because we were flying to and from St. Croix for a vacation (which was wonderful!), but the flights were all tough ones for me and I really needed the "close my eyes and escape to another world" that this provided.

This final book in the Daevabad trilogy picks up exactly where the last one left off. Dara is with Manizhah in Daevabad, having taken over the city in a murderous fashion, trying to win the support of the people and build it back to the haven for their people that it used to be. Nahri and Ali find themselves in Cairo, after Nahri's split-second decision about what to do with Suleiman's ring at the end of the last book led to them being surprise-transported away from Davebad. Told in rotating perspectives - Dara, Ali, Nahri - our three MCs face myriad revelations about their ancestry, the truths of the world they find themselves in, and the history that has been hidden. They will all face difficult, impossible, decisions as they work in their own ways to bring their warring peoples together, save their beloved Daevabad from further destruction, atone for their past mistakes, pick up the mantels that they are each uniquely prepared to wear and combine their strengths to fight for a better future...and of course, sort out all their complicated feelings for each other.

I have to be honest and say that I've put off writing this review because I am a little overwhelmed by it. There was so much that happened in this culminating book, with the characters arcs and plot twists and reveals and politics. Plus, the world-building has been wonderfully complex from the start. So, the idea of trying to communicate all my final feelings and reactions (while also trying to keep it spoiler free) is daunting. Let me just start by saying that this final book clears up all the questions that I had been building over the course of the last two. Like, starting as early as the very first chapter (in which we get a solitary look at Manizhah's story and background from her own perspective), pieces start falling into place. And even as some of that context introduces even more questions, (because like I said, so much happens in this final book), I did feel happily satisfied with answers to everything by the end. So, in that respect, it was a great wrap-up. And let me just take a second here to talk about pacing, because this feels like the right spot. If the second book was a slow-roll on pacing with all the action in the final scenes, this book was high end speed all the way through. Yes, there are still the political machinations and interpersonal developments that are a bit "slower," but they are much more interspersed...and even then, those sections felt like they moved faster in this book than before. And I was here for that. I do have to say, though, that I think the second book could have benefitted from telling some of what happened here. I get the re-taking of Davebad by Manizheh happening before Ali and Nahri could leave the city, but, I don't know...after finishing this last book, the overall pacing of the series felt uneven. Plus, this last book was so long. And while I loved every page of it, I think it could have been split better overall.

Speaking to the characters specifically, I continue to love all the complexities of their relationships, taking into account their own personal feelings as well as the realities of their histories and decisions. The Dara-Ali-Nahri triangle is so beautifully and impossibly intricate; that level of depth and detail continues to astound. And throughout the novel, one's heart goes from full to broken and back and forth among them more times than I can count. It's a spectacular emotional roller coaster of love and connection and grief. On an individual level, Dara's story continues to crush hearts, especially as we get more and more details about how badly the Nahid's abuse(d) his faith and trust time and again, especially Manizheh. And though, as we get more about Manizheh's story too, there is deep heartbreak there as well and you can't help but feel sympathy (and maybe sometimes agree with her), it's impossible not to also hate her for all the pain she then caused others in taking things too far. As for Nahri, I was so glad to see how much more in charge of herself and her choices and actions she was, from the start. That was one of my biggest complaints from the last book, is how flat she felt. And I understood all the constraints on her, so I held my overall judgement, and I can now gladly say that I am completely on board with the way her character became the strong, assertive, sneaky in all the good ways, female lead I love reading about in fantasy. And Ali... I was never really "team Ali," I can't lie, but I have to say that his growth in this last book really got me cheering for him. I loved seeing his idealism stay strong, but expand to be more inclusive and understanding as he saw more of the world, learned more about (and to accept) the less perfect parts of himself, and listen more to advice from those around him with different perspectives. So he's still not my fav, but I did come around to him by the end.

I think many of the side characters that had been introduced throughout this series fell a little by the wayside in this final book. They were (almost all) present, and played a role, but they lost some of their nuance and became more pawns of the story as it culminated around Ali, Dara, and Nahri. It wasn't to an extreme that pulled me out of the story, and they all got endings that fit what we know of their characters well, but they seemed a bit flat here in comparison to our main MCs (and Manizheh and, to be fair, Jamshid). Speaking of endings... After all the identity crises and impossible decisions faced by our primary characters, I felt like the justice and redemption arcs they each got were perfect. After the amount of build-up to this ending, it needed to be great. And it was.

I am not actually going to go into too many specifics about the plot, because I'm honestly afraid I will forget what I know from before and what was in this book and I don't want to spoil anything. But I do want to reiterate that it was full of action and reveals and that the way it all wrapped up was exactly what I wanted from this finale. Related, Chakraborty continues to impress with how she pulled together so many characters and storylines and interwoven family and cultural histories in such a cohesive and compelling way. The scope of this series was pretty epic and it felt like she held it in hand the whole time. Topically, she lays out, with such ugly and perfect precision, the way that centuries of slaughter and bad blood, when so much harm has been done, is so hard to overcome (and maybe even forgive?). And that it takes consistent, purposeful and open-minded effort to reckon with that kind of history. It holds clear messages to would-be ally-leaders/peoples of today that the labor required to successfully confront and overcome the cycle of violence and vengeance is a lot; it requires growth (and growing pains) and consideration of alternate perspectives that do not happen overnight. It takes fighting against the dangers inherent in blind faith and following orders without question or critical thought, as well as an openness to accepting the uglier parts of your own past and complicity, and maybe just a little bit of idealism. But...it is necessary for a fresh start, and that kind of fresh start is worth the effort.

Basically, Chakraborty brought this epic story to a close with a bang (and a lot of bloody violence)! I loved, so much, that the characters and their stories and feelings were so nuanced and real that I couldn't decide whose side I was on or who I was cheering for. I vacillated wildly every time new info came to light (which was often) and that made for such an engaging reading experience! Epic fantasy at its finest. At one point, I believe it's Dara who describes his feelings towards Manizheh as “loyalty and dread, love and revulsion,” and I feel like that complicated mix of emotions perfectly describes how most of these characters felt about each other and what was happening around them, as well as how I felt about them all/the plot as the reader, I was completely bought into all of it.

“Not wanting to be destroyed by despair doesn’t make you a coward, Ali. It makes you a survivor.”

"You and I are not the worst of our ancestors. They don't own us. They don't own our heritage."

Content Warnings

readandfindout's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional slow-paced

Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75

Style/writing: 4.5 stars
Themes: 5 stars
Characters: 4.5 stars
Plot: 4.5 stars
Worldbuilding: 5 stars

Content Warnings

mads_reads_books's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Content Warnings

chaptertraveller's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Content Warnings

achingallover's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

incredible

i will not stop talking about this to anyone who will listen

i wanted more zaynab but that's literally my only critique

the chosen name thing!

just. perfection.

Content Warnings

ltrueblood's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional inspiring medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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