Thursday, June 4, 2020

Book Review: "The Empire of Gold" by S.A. Chakraborty

The Empire of Gold (Daevabad Trilogy, #3)
Title: The Empire of Gold
Author: S.A. Chakraborty
Series: "The Daevabad Trilogy" #3
Genre: Adult Historical Fantasy
Page Length: 784 pages
Publication Date: June 30, 2020
Rating: 5 // 5 stars
Book 2 Review

*This will be a non-spoiler review for this final book but will contain spoilers for the first two books. Disclaimer: I was sent a free digital ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own*

I don't even know where to start this review if I'm being honest...there's so many things I want to talk about but can't for fear of spoiling this beautiful book. I guess I'll just start by saying that this book was amazing, wonderful, and an incredible conclusion to one of my favorite trilogies.

I binged the first two books in this trilogy at the beginning of 2019 and absolutely fell in love with the world and the characters. Then book 2 ended in a huge cliffhanger and I was dying to get this final book in my hands as soon as possible. The release got pushed back a bit but the time finally came when ARCs were released into the world. I was lucky enough to be granted a digital review copy and then I was ecstatic when I was able to secure a trade for a physical review copy on Twitter. The moment that the physical book landed on my doorstep I was rereading the trilogy in preparation for this finale.

I could not put this book down. I finished my reread of The Kingdom of Copper at about 1 AM one night and couldn't help myself from starting The Empire of Gold. I read about 50 pages and then the next day I read 700+ pages in one afternoon. I couldn't help myself. This book was addicting and vivid and fast-paced and everything amazing.

As it always is with this trilogy, my favorite part of this book was the characters. A good book can run on plot alone, but a great book has to have characters that readers can connect to. This trilogy has one of the best casts of characters I've ever read about. Each of the main characters has quite a distinct character voice that makes them unique from each other. Even the side characters who don't have POV chapters in this book are still well-rounded and developed. The characters don't all agree  and they don't all get along and some of them are even trying to kill each other...but I love them all.

The character development in this book was just phenomenal. The journey that these characters go on throughout this trilogy really was quite wonderful to read about and it all came to a head in this finale. I've loved getting to follow Nahri's journey throughout this trilogy and she has really changed while still staying true to herself. She's one of my favorite book characters ever because of this. Ali has undergone so much in the years that this trilogy spans and still cares so much for other people despite all the bad stuff that has gone on. And, lastly, Dara has been fighting an internal moral debate for years now that have led to quite the personal struggle in this book.

The plot itself was addicting to read. The stakes have been rising since book one and, after the insane cliffhanger at the end of book two, this book just picks up and runs with it immediately. We alternate POVs between Dara, who's in Daevabad with Manizeh trying to rebuild the city, and Ali and Nahri, who both have individual POVs but are traveling together after getting transported to Cairo. It seemed to me like Dara's chapters were more bleak and showed the struggles of the situation whereas Ali and Nahri, at least in the beginning, were a lot lighter to read. I liked the contrast and feel like this book was a lot stronger because of the balance between difficult scenes and light-hearted moments.

There were definitely a lot of moments where I was holding my breath because of what was occurring on page. The action in this story was plentiful but when there weren't high-action scenes there was still tension that reminded me of the stakes. Between the characters, tension, and Shannon's writing, I couldn't put this book down.

One of the main things that I love about this trilogy is how vivid the world and magic system is. There were times when I read this where I felt breathless at the descriptions and magic. I even would reread entire pages just to go back and visualize the setting again. I never felt overwhelmed with setting details, though, and I think that Shannon has always been great at striking the balance between enough vivid details and too much information.

The last thing that I've always raved about when it comes to this trilogy is the politics and moral/ethical debates. One thing I've found with these books is that there's usually no easy or simple way out of situations that are presented. This means that even the best case scenario can lead to a lot of death, destruction, or loss of power/money/etc. It's quite fascinating reading about how the characters come to the decisions they do because there's really no easy way out. Not to mention, I like the fact that nothing is black-and-white in this trilogy because that's not realistic in the real world. People make bad decisions, don't think things through, etc and that's shown in this trilogy. I just...I could write an entire review based around just this aspect of the trilogy but, for time's sake, I'll move on.

Overall I just loved this installment and this trilogy. I am sad to see it come to an end and I definitely cried while reading this book but I am very satisfied with how Shannon wrapped everything up. This trilogy is so magical and addicting that I can't help but sing praises as often as I can. I can't wait for it to come out at the end of June so that (1) I can collect all the beautiful finished editions and (2) so that I can rave about it with other readers.

This trilogy will always have a spot on my favorites shelf.



Thanks for reading!
xoxo
Lauren



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