I said it in my review of The Kingdom of Copper, if I had to choose between Ghassan and Manizheh, I’d choose Ghassan. So, I actually read this the day after it was released, spending the entire day consumed by the book and the ending of a series that gripped me from the moment I first picked up The City of Brass last year. I think she’s a brilliant antagonist for this series, and she kind of blindsides you with her diabolicalness.

Seeing those come to fruition here is the main reason I couldn’t put the book down; it kept drawing me back, forcing me to read “just one more chapter” — and we all know how that turns out. The book annotations include character and plot insights, historical and cultural references, and other notes. Chakraborty is damn great at getting my heart racing, whether it’s because a protagonist is facing their own death or holding the hand of a person they secretly love… I’d say the romance, family relationships, and action scenes were the strongest parts of this book. This trilogy touches on a lot of themes about racism and discrimination based on religion, skin colour and lineage.Ali has always been my favourite – and I was a little conflicted about him in this final book because it felt as though he lost a bit of himself when the conflict that had formed so much of his arc – with his family, his faith – being eased if not resolved. Go Soo and Park Geun-hyung reunited with each other after they worked in another SBS TV series Marrying A Millionaire where Park played father of Go Soo's character, Lee Yo-won reunited with Park for the 3rd time in this series after they worked first in another SBS TV series Surgeon Bong Dal-hee and second in KBS series Cruel Love. Personally, I also wanted to see Nahri beg for Jamshid’s forgiveness and him being reluctant to give it, but that’s probably just me.

Two, emotionally I was just a tad disappointed in how some of the character relationships played out. I’ve been sobbing for roughly 2 hours now and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight - especially when my world goes quiet. There’s a lot of similarities between them in this respect, they both straddle two distinct worlds (Ali with the Marid and the Djinn, Nahri with her human and Daeva heritage) so it was interesting to see them embracing the sides of their heritage that they’ve not necessarily ignored but been unable to explore fully up till this point. maybe only bad because there’s no sequels yet confirmed :’) There was enough ambiguity in obviously Dara’s storyline but also Nahri’s regarding the new enemies she makes in the climax to have potential for sequels, possibly in another time period?

I don’t want to be too spoilery here, but for a book with a high body count generally, it seemed strange that more of the main characters didn’t end up dying. Chakraborty makes this series intricate and detailed which is something t

I have never done that before in the history of my reading experience after finishing a book - well maybe only one other time - but certainly not since The Empire of Gold, that’s for sure. Especially with book 3, because the depth of the world-building goes to a whole other level, I felt like I was watching an Emmy nominated and extremely well-developed TV series. I know the books aren’t about *romance* but to feature it semi-heavily in all the books, I was just a tad bummed at how the relationships are handled. Through her medical and community work, Nahri had developed a following there, and feels responsible to her followers for trying to repair the damage her mother has done. The Daevabad trilogy up till this point has been largely confined to either Daevabad or Egypt, so it was pretty cool to get to see Ta Ntry in this book and discover more of the world Chakraborty has created here.Having narrowly escaped their murderous families and Daevabad's deadly politics, Nahri and Ali, now safe in Cairo, face difficult choices of their own. Fortunately, I won’t have to begin my grieving process since the author is talking about writing further adventures, her Instagram even showcasing a chapter from Hatset (yessss! How the trauma of conquest persists on occupied people for generations after the main event has plenty of resonance with the world today.