Reviews with content warning for Death - The Empire of Gold

Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty

81 reviews

sofiadanielle's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

AH. The end of the Daevabad Trilogy..

It’s been quite the ride, I will say. The length of the book was daunting, and took me a bit to get through, but god am I glad that I did.

I do think this book was the best end to the trilogy, jam packed with twists and turns, action, heartache; never a dull moment, easily. I have so much love for some of the characters, that it hurts to say goodbye to them/this story. But, again, I am so content with this ending.

S.A. Chakraborty, the person you are to write Middle Eastern fantasy… Chef’s kiss.

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bobbyeight's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional 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

Nobody talk to me I am unwell

(But also thank you Shannon for writing these books. They mean the world to me.)

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lesliehirgelt's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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dietlindrozekin's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious sad medium-paced

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

3.75

Cawpile-method

Characters: 6/10: De band die ik in het vorige boek met de karakters had, of de verwondering voor de karakters, had ik in dit derde deel van de Daêvabad-trilogie minder. Vaker dan eens stoorde ik me zelfs aan de personages omdat ze er te lang over deden om dingen te beseffen.
Atmosfeer: 8/10: De wereld waarin het verhaal zich afspeelt blijft super.
Writing: 7/10: An sich is alles goed geschreven, maar ik merkte wel dat ik af en toe de beschrijvingen van alles oversloeg en me concentreerde op de dialogen om het vooruit te laten gaan.
Plot: 9/10: De schrijfster is echt een meesteres in het uitwerken van verhaallijnen! Love her for that.
Intrigue: 8/10: Ik had een tijdje nodig om in het verhaal te komen (de eerste 200 pagina's, bijna had ik het boek weggelegd), tot opeens de geschiedenis van de stad en van Nahri in puzzelstukjes werd blootgegeven en toen werd het interessant. Hoe fascineer je een historica? Begin met de geschiedenis! Eenmaal ik die rode draadlijn terugvond in het boek was ik vanzelf ook meer en meer geïnteresseerd in het verhaal en de huidige tijdlijn.
Logic: 8/10: Je moet er wel je hoofd er een beetje bijhouden om de complotten en geschiedenis te verwerken.
Enjoyment: 6,5/10: Ik had echt lang nodig om in het verhaal te komen, ik heb echt passages overslaan omdat het mij te lang duurde maar uiteindelijk heb ik er wel nog van genoten omdat het wel een goed boek is.

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scrubsandbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional 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

An absolutely amazing conclusion to the trilogy and my OTP got their HEA! The stakes were higher now than before but I loved the moments where they managed to just... calm down even if it felt like the calm before the storm. The pacing, the full on world-building, the development of characters I thought were not so great and didn't like from the beginning... it was all so exceptional and believable, even if for some, I went "damnit, Mrs. Chakraborty, why are you making me start to like this one??" I am going to miss this world so SO much.

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kitwhelan's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring tense medium-paced

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

4.75

What a satisfying end to the series! I love Nahri so much, and I loved following her & Ali’s journey. I have to say Dara’s chapters in this book were hard to get through. Just having to see Manizheh’s cruelty get worse and worse was hard. Because we didn’t really see her transformation from young woman to despot, it felt like it was just piling on at times. But overall I very much enjoyed this challenging book, and I would very much recommend this series to fantasy fans!

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boba_nbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

HOLY CRAP. If I could rate this higher than 5 stars I would. This book was absolutely amazing and will be living rent-free in my mind for a long time.

I was worried this book would be too long, but when I got to the end, I didn’t want it to be over. There were plenty of tense and tearful moments, and I cherished every second of it.

My favorite thing about this entire trilogy is that no one was fully good or fully evil. Everyone has motivations for doing what they thought was right, and each and every one of them did something wrong at some point in time. I felt deeply for every character but especially for Dara, Nahri, and Ali since theirs are the perspectives we followed throughout the series.

This is definitely going down as one of my favorite books / trilogies of all time. If you love political intrigue, power dynamics, magic, and morally gray characters, give this trilogy a chance. I hope more people read it and that it goes down as a favorite for years and years to come.

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viireads's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

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rinku's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Compared to the snooze fest The Kingdom of Copper was, The Empire of Gold was way more interesting and was a 3.5 stars read for me, just like The City of Brass. Instead of staying at one place and the plot barely moving forward, the story is more adventurous and brings together the open threads, even though I didn’t understand all of it.

This book follows again the three characters from last book, namely Ali, Nahri, and (sadly) Dara. Ali and Nahri are suddenly in Kairo and have to find a way back to Daevabad. Through Dara’s POV, we learn that the magic is gone there and that Manizheh is struggling to take over the city. We get some court intrigue vibes with his part of the story while Nahri and Ali experience more adventures and immediate dangers.

My biggest problem with the plot was probably that there were many things that I just didn’t understand. Maybe it’s because I got at some points really tired when reading the series, or maybe because things weren’t explained enough. It took me probably too long to understand what happened to Ali and Dara. Ali’s part of the story bored me at some points quite a lot, even though he’s my favorite character of the three; especially some of the Sobek parts were just weird (and all I could think about was hbomberguy, I’m really sorry).

In comparison, the ending was quite nice, even though I had some issues with it:

I loved that at the end, they were all back at Daevabad and that Jamshid saved the day. It was a bit cliché that the villains argue at the end, and it wasn’t really satisfying that Dara was the one killing Manizheh. Can we also talk about the fact that none of the important characters died? Of course, I’m not a fan of killing characters off just for the sake of it, but it just didn’t fell right since the stakes were so high

. What annoyed me as well was that after the final fight, we get more pages than necessary. It’s nice that

that they are introducing democracy, but I doubt that there will peace since the grievances the different tribes have won’t simply go away, I believe

Like before, my favorite characters were Nahri and Ali. At many moments in the course of the story, I just wanted to hug them since they deserve so much better. When we’re back in Kairo, I noticed how much I miss Nahri’s old self. I also love that we finally get the dynamic between them back that we had in the first book. They have so many great moments together, and

I’m so happy that Nahri chose him

. What I especially like about them is that their gender roles are kinda reversed with Ali being more emotional and Nahri being more logical. Still, Nahri’s emotions are depicted quite well.

Besides them, the other al Qahtani’s were definitely carrying this book for me. Muntadhir is still one of my favorite characters and

I was so happy that he survived

. Most of the female characters were great as well, besides Manizheh. With her, I had a problem that I had with a few characters: I couldn’t understand their motivations. Would you really feel revenge for ten generations and judge the descendants of those people for what their ancestors did? Ghassan was a more interesting villain, to be honest. I furthermore still hate Dara and it’s baffling to that some people say that he carried the series. There’s just nothing to like about him; I hate how impulsive he is and how many innocent people he hurt. I’m really not a fan of the fact that

they spared him, Nahri should’ve killed him honestly. But I guess he’s punishing himself in the end, so that’s good

I’m honestly not sure if I would recommend the Daevabad series or not. What I really liked about it were the characters, but that’s mostly it. Revenge is a big theme in this series which couldn’t catch me as much since I don’t know if it’s the right way to hate other people because for what their ancestors thousands of years ago, but oh well. Additionally, some things were just a bit too complicated, and I still don’t fully understand everything that has happened. In my opinion, this series could’ve been a duology or a trilogy with normal-length books. This whole hospital arc was so boring and could’ve been told in a few chapters. Those lengths are probably the reason why I couldn’t enjoy the series as much as I wanted to and won’t re-read it any time.

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espressoreader's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad 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

This series is beautifully done. It covers uncomfortable topics such as racial diversity religious diversity, class diversity, and even sexual diversity without appearing to beat the socially woke drum. For this reason, this book actually makes a person consider these difficulties that other’s face without turning them off by making them feel drowned in a political concept, rather than in a story with dialogue. None of the characters in this book are perfect. All of them have their own individual preferences, and even prejudices regardless of how high up they are how low down they are all of them demonstrate a level of prejudice. However, this book allows you to look beyond their flaws and watch them grow above them Prince, Ali is considered to be a religious extremist. Though many, of his perceptions are not ones that I would share he holds them, and grows to respect people with whom he does not agree. I think Prince Ali is perhaps one of the most well written characters, and one that I identify with the best. He maintains his religion, understand the precepts that say some thing is wrong, and still treats those people with respect and recognizes their dignity.

Beyond this political intrigue, there is also a beautiful story line with friendship, betrayal, reconciliation and ultimately understanding. The story shows the impact of generational abuse post traumatic stress, and gaslighting. It shows the impact of unhealthy relationships at all levels, and it shows very competent people suffering from and overcoming the physical and emotional abuse.

It does all of these things, without appearing to be activist propaganda. It relates real emotion experiences and actions rather than just glossing over everything as he’s racist and he’s too religious. I find that this book was extremely respectful of all ideologies, and showed the strengths and weaknesses inherent with those ideologies, and the flawed ways they were represented by their followers. This was overall a great trilogy, and I would love to see more from this author.

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