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hibaxx's reviews
400 reviews
The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty
2.75
alizayd al qahtani......someone massage this man's shoulders for HARD CARRYING the entire series on his back.
well, i have a lot of complaints so let's just get right into it.
dara - just an absolutely awful character in every sense, and the fact that he got SO much page time is mind boggling to me. did we really need pages upon pages of him pathetically wallowing in his own self-pity?? when we could've had more interesting and dynamic POV chapters from characters like zaynab or aqisa instead? putting aside the fact that i think dara has a terrible personality and infuriating train of thought, i can't help feeling like the author did a huge disservice to his character (or the concept of his character) - refused to let him take any REAL accountability, refused to let him confront his genocidal past beyond his self-pity, refused to let him actually unpack his prejudices against the shafit, let him get away SCOT-FREE after committing mass murder. like what are we doing here??? there is a way to write a compelling tragic antagonist or anti-hero and this is not it.
(if you want to read about a former mass murderer who actually earns his redemption and is a genuinely likable character, read the spear cuts through water instead).
absolutely despised dara's character arc and how it wrapped up - the narrative seems to have an odd and entirely unearned compassion for him. his so-called redemption was a joke - the only reason he finally took a stand against manizheh was because of how her actions started affecting HIM and his tribe and the woman he loved - because dara has always been a self-absorbed, bigoted, hypocritical freak and that never once changed. he has been the exact same person since the beginning - zero character growth, zero learning. the fact that his arc ended with him wanting to make penance with literally everyone EXCEPT the shafit, the people he committed genocide against, was just the cherry on top.
speaking of the shafit, the politics - this series started off with complex political issues and strong themes about violent oppression and revolution and the empire of gold reduced it all to a simplistic 'daevas vs geziris' conflict. suddenly, the quest for liberation and justice is now vengeance and apparently justice for the shafit means to handwave away the reasons for their systemic oppression, ignore any root causes, refuse to let them have any form of retribution, and have that all be okay because hey we're a democracy now and everyone gets a voice! it's just so typical of adult fantasy authors to introduce themes of oppression and then go on to ignore the actual oppressed class for the rest of the series (the shafit sadly have a lot in common with the skaa from mistborn era 1).
alizayd was truly the saving grace of this novel and i absolutely hated how he was treated by the narrative and by the other characters - because why was everyone acting as if the one person who has to make apologies and amendments is ALI of all people??? in the same book where we have characters like dara and jamshid, belonging to a blood purist tribe and having horrible bigoted views and NEVER ONCE apologizing for their views. nahri having all this understanding for her brother's bigotry because that's all he's ever known really soured me on her character.
anyway, i loved ali and his unwavering faith, his relationship with his siblings, his strong sense of justice, his constant support of oppressed people - he's the one character with the spirit of a revolutionary and it's disappointing that the author pushed that aspect of the story aside to focus on manizheh's boring ass revenge instead.
i really wanted to like nahri more, and i do understand the author wanted her to be a complicated person with divided loyalties between her nahid daeva and shafit ancestries - but this series did not have the skills to pull that off. ultimately, nahri was far more committed to her nahid identity and the daeva tribe, mourning her ancestors and the injustices they faced while barely acknowledging the fact that they were violent oppressors, and the fact that the daevas continued to oppress the shafit till date. i get that she stood for equality for everyone and peace in daevabad but i wish she realized there could be no real liberation and no real peace without liberation and justice for the shafit, and the shafit alone.
overall, i did enjoy reading this series and i loved how the author built such a rich, lived-in world with elemental magic and otherworldly creatures - i'm just sad that this book couldn't live up to its full potential and lost its way (and that no one chopped dara's head off but oh well).
well, i have a lot of complaints so let's just get right into it.
dara - just an absolutely awful character in every sense, and the fact that he got SO much page time is mind boggling to me. did we really need pages upon pages of him pathetically wallowing in his own self-pity?? when we could've had more interesting and dynamic POV chapters from characters like zaynab or aqisa instead? putting aside the fact that i think dara has a terrible personality and infuriating train of thought, i can't help feeling like the author did a huge disservice to his character (or the concept of his character) - refused to let him take any REAL accountability, refused to let him confront his genocidal past beyond his self-pity, refused to let him actually unpack his prejudices against the shafit, let him get away SCOT-FREE after committing mass murder. like what are we doing here??? there is a way to write a compelling tragic antagonist or anti-hero and this is not it.
(if you want to read about a former mass murderer who actually earns his redemption and is a genuinely likable character, read the spear cuts through water instead).
absolutely despised dara's character arc and how it wrapped up - the narrative seems to have an odd and entirely unearned compassion for him. his so-called redemption was a joke - the only reason he finally took a stand against manizheh was because of how her actions started affecting HIM and his tribe and the woman he loved - because dara has always been a self-absorbed, bigoted, hypocritical freak and that never once changed. he has been the exact same person since the beginning - zero character growth, zero learning. the fact that his arc ended with him wanting to make penance with literally everyone EXCEPT the shafit, the people he committed genocide against, was just the cherry on top.
speaking of the shafit, the politics - this series started off with complex political issues and strong themes about violent oppression and revolution and the empire of gold reduced it all to a simplistic 'daevas vs geziris' conflict. suddenly, the quest for liberation and justice is now vengeance and apparently justice for the shafit means to handwave away the reasons for their systemic oppression, ignore any root causes, refuse to let them have any form of retribution, and have that all be okay because hey we're a democracy now and everyone gets a voice! it's just so typical of adult fantasy authors to introduce themes of oppression and then go on to ignore the actual oppressed class for the rest of the series (the shafit sadly have a lot in common with the skaa from mistborn era 1).
alizayd was truly the saving grace of this novel and i absolutely hated how he was treated by the narrative and by the other characters - because why was everyone acting as if the one person who has to make apologies and amendments is ALI of all people??? in the same book where we have characters like dara and jamshid, belonging to a blood purist tribe and having horrible bigoted views and NEVER ONCE apologizing for their views. nahri having all this understanding for her brother's bigotry because that's all he's ever known really soured me on her character.
anyway, i loved ali and his unwavering faith, his relationship with his siblings, his strong sense of justice, his constant support of oppressed people - he's the one character with the spirit of a revolutionary and it's disappointing that the author pushed that aspect of the story aside to focus on manizheh's boring ass revenge instead.
i really wanted to like nahri more, and i do understand the author wanted her to be a complicated person with divided loyalties between her nahid daeva and shafit ancestries - but this series did not have the skills to pull that off. ultimately, nahri was far more committed to her nahid identity and the daeva tribe, mourning her ancestors and the injustices they faced while barely acknowledging the fact that they were violent oppressors, and the fact that the daevas continued to oppress the shafit till date. i get that she stood for equality for everyone and peace in daevabad but i wish she realized there could be no real liberation and no real peace without liberation and justice for the shafit, and the shafit alone.
overall, i did enjoy reading this series and i loved how the author built such a rich, lived-in world with elemental magic and otherworldly creatures - i'm just sad that this book couldn't live up to its full potential and lost its way (and that no one chopped dara's head off but oh well).
Elektra by Jennifer Saint
1.0
i'm so serious when i say i'd rather read a book about only men than read about a woman like elektra ever again.
this book was a complete waste of my time, a waste of space on bookshelves, a waste of the trees sacrificed to make the pages for its useless words.
(full spoilers ahead).
elektra is by far one of the worst characters i've ever had the displeasure of coming across. a one-dimensional, infuriatingly single-minded, naive, hypocritical, delusional mess. her brain is a vast, empty, echoing chamber with a single brain cell dedicated to her vile father, agamemnon. her motivations made ZERO sense, her train of thought was absolutely baffling to me, her decisions and actions were so stupid that i was almost in awe. the way she alienated all the women around her to dedicate her entire existence to her disgusting father who murdered her sister was beyond my comprehension. the way she was wholly, utterly unmoved at hearing of her sister's murder, that she actually DEFENDED her father for it and VILIFIED her mother clytemnestra for taking her rightful revenge against agamemnon???? i was unfortunately stuck in this girl's head the whole time but i have no fucking idea what she was thinking. why didn't she care about her sister's murder? why couldn't she sympathize with her mother? why was she so completely obsessed with her father that it never occurred to her that he might throw her away too like he did her sister??? why was she SO OBSESSED with her father that she wanted to exchange places with the women he enslaved and raped just so she could be near him???? and i'm expected to feel an ounce of sympathy while reading pages upon pages of her grieving this revolting man.
and the nail in the coffin for me is that the narrative treated all of this in a pretty neutral way. sure, the story highlights elektra's hypocrisy and she herself recognizes it but ultimately the narrative rewards her for it so what was the point??? the book ends with her feeling at peace with herself and her life. i was truly bamboozled.
honestly, clytemnestra is the real protagonist of this story and elektra is, at best, the antagonistic side character. i genuinely don't understand the choice to title this book 'elektra'. she isn't even a well-written antagonist - she's so unsympathetic and her motivations are absolutely unfathomable, plus she's never confronted by the wrongness of her actions and she's never truly conflicted about whether she's on the right path. as someone who enjoys antagonistic, complex, difficult women characters in my fiction, elektra was simply boring. apart from her obsession with her father, there was literally nothing else to her. sorry i like my fictional women a bit more layered than that.
now clytemnestra was actually that layered character i love reading about and if only she had been the focus and the narrative had been on her side, my feelings would be so different right now. as for cassandra, the third POV, i have mixed feelings - it felt like her chapters were just endless suffering without any rhyme or reason. yes, women suffering at the hands of men is a reality that should be depicted in our media, but for me, there needs to be more to it than just that. i don't like reading about pointless suffering, but that's just me.
overall, sure it's a beautifully written book and a breeze to get through but at the cost of my sanity and my average storygraph rating? no thanks.
this book was a complete waste of my time, a waste of space on bookshelves, a waste of the trees sacrificed to make the pages for its useless words.
(full spoilers ahead).
elektra is by far one of the worst characters i've ever had the displeasure of coming across. a one-dimensional, infuriatingly single-minded, naive, hypocritical, delusional mess. her brain is a vast, empty, echoing chamber with a single brain cell dedicated to her vile father, agamemnon. her motivations made ZERO sense, her train of thought was absolutely baffling to me, her decisions and actions were so stupid that i was almost in awe. the way she alienated all the women around her to dedicate her entire existence to her disgusting father who murdered her sister was beyond my comprehension. the way she was wholly, utterly unmoved at hearing of her sister's murder, that she actually DEFENDED her father for it and VILIFIED her mother clytemnestra for taking her rightful revenge against agamemnon???? i was unfortunately stuck in this girl's head the whole time but i have no fucking idea what she was thinking. why didn't she care about her sister's murder? why couldn't she sympathize with her mother? why was she so completely obsessed with her father that it never occurred to her that he might throw her away too like he did her sister??? why was she SO OBSESSED with her father that she wanted to exchange places with the women he enslaved and raped just so she could be near him???? and i'm expected to feel an ounce of sympathy while reading pages upon pages of her grieving this revolting man.
and the nail in the coffin for me is that the narrative treated all of this in a pretty neutral way. sure, the story highlights elektra's hypocrisy and she herself recognizes it but ultimately the narrative rewards her for it so what was the point??? the book ends with her feeling at peace with herself and her life. i was truly bamboozled.
honestly, clytemnestra is the real protagonist of this story and elektra is, at best, the antagonistic side character. i genuinely don't understand the choice to title this book 'elektra'. she isn't even a well-written antagonist - she's so unsympathetic and her motivations are absolutely unfathomable, plus she's never confronted by the wrongness of her actions and she's never truly conflicted about whether she's on the right path. as someone who enjoys antagonistic, complex, difficult women characters in my fiction, elektra was simply boring. apart from her obsession with her father, there was literally nothing else to her. sorry i like my fictional women a bit more layered than that.
now clytemnestra was actually that layered character i love reading about and if only she had been the focus and the narrative had been on her side, my feelings would be so different right now. as for cassandra, the third POV, i have mixed feelings - it felt like her chapters were just endless suffering without any rhyme or reason. yes, women suffering at the hands of men is a reality that should be depicted in our media, but for me, there needs to be more to it than just that. i don't like reading about pointless suffering, but that's just me.
overall, sure it's a beautifully written book and a breeze to get through but at the cost of my sanity and my average storygraph rating? no thanks.