Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty

8 reviews

ceejayvee's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Gore, Torture, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Sexual assault and Alcohol

rinku's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Alcohol, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Gun violence, Sexual content, Dementia, and Abandonment

Minor: Body horror

brynalexa's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring sad tense fast-paced

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

4.75

This book is somehow MORE of a wild ride than the second in the trilogy. I was worried, hopeful, invested, and a little furious the whole time. This would be an easy five stars except there’s a style change related to timing, perspective,  and a suddenly unreliable narrator that was very off putting so late in the series. There could have been a much smoother way of shocking the reader which the author had done plenty of times. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Gun violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Medical content, Mass/school shootings, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and War

Minor: Ableism, Misogyny, Sexual content, and Dementia

dazzle_spider_reader_1212's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful 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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Minor: Animal cruelty, Child death, Death, Gun violence, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Medical content, Dementia, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

laurenkimoto's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

4.5

Wow this was a rare series where the sequels either stayed the same quality or got better. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Dementia, Trafficking, Grief, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

isleoflinds's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Sexual content, Trafficking, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Pregnancy, Outing, Alcohol, and Colonisation

Minor: Rape

rebeccajost's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Genocide, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Body horror, Gun violence, Slavery, Kidnapping, Death of parent, and Alcohol

Minor: Sexual content

achingallover's review against another edition

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. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol