The City of Brass [YA Fantasy Book Review]
Thanks to Harper Voyager for the splendid ARC! City of Brass is a fantasy YA Own Voices story (books by people of certain identities about their culture, religion, sexuality, identity, etc.; Chakraborty is Muslim) that takes place in Cairo and moves into a city called Daevabad. It's MC is a thief and healer named Nahri. The good: Wonderful worldbuilding; the world is rich and feels "lived in." Nuanced characters who could at times be irritating, but I could find myself connected to them nonetheless. To me, that's deft writing. It's great to see a fantasy inspired by cultures outside of Western Europe. Also, the story is gripping and didn't feel its length at all, so reading wasn't a slog. An all-in-all great debut. What I didn't enjoy as much: Certain characters grated on me in ways where I feel like they should've been called out for stealing a character's agency. I think them being irritating was intentional, but I feel like the pushback may've been stronger. There's a lot of background sexual violence, though perhaps exacerbated by my quick read. Now, I should be clear that I'm not against rape being in media because exploring issues of trauma is important, but I felt it was just in the background to get a darker feel; overall, the book was darker than I anticipated. This is fine (I love dark!), however, I feel that the sexual violence is not helped by these issues: 1) Very few of the nuanced characters given enough presence are women; the only examples I can give are Nahri and Nisreen. (I LOVED their surrogate mother-daughter dynamic.) 2) While Nahri starts off as disadvantaged, once she enters the palace, most of the main and supporting characters are wealthy and not of the marginalized people who are the primary targets of sexual violence. Therefore, we only hear about the effects of the threat of sexual violence without discussing the ramifications. However, this is, of course, a book I still very much enjoyed and by no means the worst example I've read at handling sexual violence. [minor spoilers] I do feel with Dara and Ali removed from Nahri's side during the sequel, this will allow her to know more characters and perhaps speak to the disadvantaged groups, with whom she could empathize with given her own struggles; in the palace, I hope Chakraborty expands on Nahri's relationships with Nishreen and other female characters, such as Ali's sister (Zayub?). It would be great to see Nahri extend her adventures beyond the palace or temple. I see this as an opportunity to explore themes established in this first book. [end minor spoilers] Overall, I read most of this novel in one day. I started it and then binged 500 pages the next day. It is an engaging read with an intricate, richly dense world. I recommend that you look out for it when it's released in November. Excited for the sequel!