Reviews

The last 150 pages of this book was amazing, perfectly hooking the reader to continue the series I feel like I need to pick up the next one immediately.

I really liked the characters , they were very fleshed out and complex, questionable and real. There was such life to them on page and I really enjoyed both point of views.

I feel like the pacing was off for a good chunk of this though, especially a very long and meandering middle.

robynlynae's review against another edition

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5.0

Wow, the world building in this book was INCREDIBLE! I've had this series in my TBR for a while now but finally picked it up and started as a buddy read with a friend who was re-reading. I'm so glad I did because the characters and this universe is so vibrant and immersive and interesting.

The mixture of Middle Eastern cultures in this book makes it a really fascinating read but what was most compelling to me was the characters. Chakraborty does an excellent job of making these characters well rounded. They are flawed and make mistakes and grow. I love when books can subvert your expectations and change your opinion on characters throughout the book.

Spoiler

When I started the book I was firmly in the camp that Dara was the hot hero who we were supposed to root for and Ali was this arrogant, annoying little rich prince but by the end my opinion of both started to shift? As a romance lover I was at first hoping that that aspect of the story would be more front-and-center, but the deeper into the book, the less I was bothered about it because the story pulled me in. Also, love triangles are normally very icky for me but I feel like this one wasn't as bad.

The last 2 hours of the book were super action packed and I even snuck my Airpods at work to finish it. I immediately downloaded The Kingdom of Copper, the next book in the series.

It definitely passed my 'escape test'. The writing style and quality was excellent enough that I wasn't editing in my head as I read. The only reason it was 4 stars for me instead of 5 was because it took me a while to get fully invested.