The City of Brass
2017 • 533 pages

Ratings273

Average rating4

15

DNF @ 22%. I just cannot be bothered to finish this. It read way too much like YA and I don't like YA. I was all into it being a story about a hardened young women who's a master thief in magical Cairo and that's not what I'm getting. Firstly, we only see Nahri being a thief for about 2 seconds before the plot line takes a sharp left into class struggles between the half bloods and the pure blood djinn in a magic city. Second, I was expecting Nahri to be smarter. She's spent this entire book so far just asking Dara questions that I feel like she should know considering she grew up in Egypt where these legends and monsters are from. The couple of chapters I spend with Ali the Prince were infuriating. He's a teenager by Djinn standards and you can tell. He's a spoiled, clueless boy who clearly has had horse blinders on his entire life because he doesn't seem to understand the depth of oppression that the half bloods are experiencing in his own hometown?! Even though he's secretly working with the half blood rebellion in a limited capacity when we first meet him?! The only character who wasn't getting on my nerves was Dara. And he's a battle hardened djinn with PTSD and a snarky attitude. So because these two idiots (Nahri and Ali) don't know shit about shit, Dara is the only person driving the plot forward by info dumping after being asked a million questions. I'll pass on this series.

April 10, 2024