The Kingdom of Copper

Let me just say I thought The City of Brass was phenomenal, The Kingdom of Copper was even BETTER. The history and Middle Eastern culture that is written into this series is simply beautiful. I loved how the beginning shows the three main characters, Dara, Nahri, and Ali, pretty much right after the events of City of Brass before doing a five year time jump. At first I thought the time jump was going to be extremely weird, but S.A. Chakraborty did SUCH a good job with the character development that the time jump helped the plot instead of hindering it. The time jump allowed for the characters to grow from the aftermath of the ending in City of Brass.Also, like I just want everyone to be happy. This book ripped my soul out. I just wish everyone find happiness by the end of this series because they have been through so much and they DESERVE TO BE HAPPY. I think what makes this book so real and relatable are the characters. They face situations in which the decision is not black and white, but gray. They are morally gray characters and I absolutely love that about them.Dara. I was so conflicted with him the entire time. He is just so tired and is fighting other people's battles that he honestly isn't even sure he wants to fight. I thought it was interesting that he is completely free now, but is it really freedom for him? My heart hurts cause he wanted to get back to Nahri, but that reunion did not go pretty. I honestly don't know how their relationship is going end up, whether then can even patch things up and be at least friends in the last book. I hope Dara finds peace in the last book.Nahri!!!!! I love her. She's a badass. I was so happy she rebuilt the Nahid hospital. I can't believe she actually married Muntadhir, but honestly their marriage was one of the more complex relationships that I loved in this book. While they do not love each other, they do have a somewhat mutual respect for each other by the end of the book.Ali. This man. I hope he finds happiness too. He's been through too much. I was happy he ended up back in Daevabad for the majority of the book. I loved the moments being the siblings. Ali just wants to help the Shafit and make a difference which I love about him. When he built Nahri her own office in the hospital that was decorated like Cairo, I lost it. He knows his friendship with Nahri is almost nonexistent plus she is his brother's wife, but still he can't help himself from being kind and wishing that the friendship they did have was still there.But that ending...... Ali now has Suleiman's seal. Ghassan al Qahtani is dead. Muntadhir is NO longer dying and is healed (but like forreal I cried when he was like sacrificing himself and told Nahri to tell Jamshid (HER BROTHER AND FELLOW NAHID) that he loved him. Like Shannon, that was not fair to wreck my emotions like that for him to only end up being cured at the end. But Muntadhir is like now captured (??) so is he even really alive. Jamshid is like missing.... (also still can't believe he tried to assassinated Ali. I really hope that get brought up in the final book cause I still don't think Nahri knows it was Jamshid who poisoned Ali). ALI AND NAHRI ARE BACK IN CAIRO?!?!?!?! Manizheh claims her magic is gone. And all Daevabad's magic and borders are gone. I am assuming that has to do with Nahri and Ali taking Suleiman's seal out of Daevabad even though it wasn't on purpose originally.Overall this book took the character development to the next level and I stayed up until 5:30am one night finishing this book because I couldn't put it down. I am SO excited for the third and final installment to see where these characters end their stories. It comes out in the US in exactly 5 days from the time I am posting this review (Out June 30th). I have my copy of The Empire of Gold preordered and will be waiting for it to be delivered so I can devour the book as soon as it comes. It is already out in the UK and I am trying to avoid spoilers, but so far the reviews I have read have raved how good the ending is and a lot have people have cried. I am ready to be emotional destroyed by The Empire of Gold and am sure S.A. Chakraborty has done this series and its characters justice in its ending.Single handedly one of my favorite quotes from The Kingdom of Copper:“Go steal some happiness for yourself, my friend,” she said softly. “Trust me when I say the chance doesn’t always come back.” - Nahri to Ali (Chapter 28)

The Kingdom of Copper is an amazing follow-up to Chakraborty’s debut novel, The City of Brass. In fact, I may have loved it even more than the first book! If you haven’t read The City of Brass, please do so before reading The Kingdom of Copper. The rest of this review will contain spoilers for The City of Brass.Five years after the events of The City of Brass, and Daevabad is in trouble. The shafit, those with human ancestry, are being treated worse than ever, and tensions between all major fractions are high. Plus, the city’s facing intense economic issues. Nahri’s now married to Muntadhir and living a highly constrained life, as her father-in-law barely ever allows her to leave the palace. Ali’s survived assassination attempts and has made a life for himself in a small, backwater village where his powers over water left to him by the marid possession of the previous book can mean life or death in the desert. Meanwhile… Dara’s back. He’s somehow been raised from the dead, and furthermore, restored to what the djinn were before Solomon’s Seal. And he’s not the only one who’s unexpectedly alive — so is Nahri’s mother, and she’s planning to reconquer Daevabad, no matter what cost.I apologize for this, but I desperately need to get it out of my system — I hate Dara so much. So so much. When I saw he was back in Kingdom of Copper, I was like “urghhhh WHY.” I find Dara to be the possessive, alpha-male-character type who has all sorts of warning signs for abusive relationships and chockful of toxic masculinity. Also, he’s a literal war criminal, just throwing that out there. Frankly, he’s just the worst. But here’s the thing: the narrative knows Dara’s borderline abusive. While the narrative might have some sympathy for the horrible things that have happened to Dara, it doesn’t let them excuse the horrible things he’s done. I’m all here for stories holding shitty men accountable. But although this is my reading on Dara, a quick scan through Goodreads reviews reveals that I’m practically alone. Apparently, a lot of other reviewers really love Dara (this sometimes involves gushing about how “broody” he is)? And ship him with Nahri??? As much as I hate this, I guess it makes sense. So many stories treat abusive behavior as romantic (shout out to Naomi Novik’s Uprooted), so what I read as a deconstruction, other people might be reading as straight romantic. I guess it’s kind of like the Star Wars fans who ship Rey and Kylo. Yes, I did just call Nahri/Dara shippers equivalent to Reylo shippers. And I’ll stand by it.Now that I’ve finished yelling about how we shouldn’t romanticize dudes down with genocide, let’s move on to another topic: just how freaking good The Kingdom of Copper is. I adored The Kingdom of Copper. I did not want to put this book down. Do you know how much self-control it took to put the book down to go to sleep or go to class??? So much. Also, I legit avoided people before class so they wouldn’t try to talk to me and interrupt my reading. I had to find out what happened! The plotting is just so exciting because you’ve got these multiple strands that are obviously all converging in the worst possible ways for our protagonists. It’s delightful.The beginning of The Kingdom of Copper was a bit hard for me because I could remember so little from the first book. Mostly what tripped me up was remembering all the different divisions within Daevabad, but I figured it out eventually and was able to become really immersed from there.Otherwise, what I loved about The Kingdom of Copper was also present in the first book: superb world-building, excellent writing, and characters I quickly grew attached to. Weirdly enough, I kind of like the idea of Nahri and Ali as a couple? That’s super unusual for me. I’m mostly more into fictional friendships than romantic relationships. I think it’s the whole Chaotic Good/Lawful Good dynamic they’ve got going.Before I wrap up this review, let’s talk about queerness in The Kingdom of Copper! This series does acknowledge queer people exist and actually has two queer male characters who are in love with each other. One of whom is Muntadhir, Nahri’s husband. I was seriously scared that one of the two would die (this was a big fear in the first book too), and I am really hoping this series doesn’t involve queer tragedy. Spoiler: [( We keep almost getting a queer tragedy. Both with the ending of the last book, and some stuff in this one. Muntadhir was about to be fatally poisoned but got saved at the last minute. I really don’t know how I feel about how the narrative keeps edging up to queer tragedy because it stresses me out. ) (hide spoiler)] On another point, I think Muntadhir may fall into the promiscuous bisexual stereotype. I guess my verdict on queer rep in this series would be that it’s not terrible but also not super great.I’m really thankful I got the chance to read an ARC of The Kingdom of Copper (thanks specifically to Pam Jaffee at HarperCollins), and I can’t wait to read the third and final book in the trilogy. This is not a series you want to miss, and I highly recommend it!I received an ARC in exchange for a free and honest review.

I wanted this to go faster and slower.We build a hospital. We get really offended. We catch feelings. We all have family drama... that goes back to the dawn of time. We still have no idea what's actually going on.Political fantasy landscape of my dreams, I loved the first and the second was a strong but tricky task. Excited to read the third.

Beautiful metallic sheen, perfect condition. Thank you!

La portada es hermosa, al igual que la primera parte viene con un acabado metálico que la hace lucir increíble, aún no lo he leído pero espero que sea mejor que City of Brass

Très bon état, très bon livre

緻密に組み立てられた物語。３編完結するのが楽しみです。

OMG, 5 ⭐A veces las segundas partes no son buenas, pero este libro simplemente superó mis expectativas! Me encantó

I thought I could never like a book more than The City of Brass: I was wrong! The Kingdom of Copper lets us into the minds of not-so-candid-anymore characters and takes us into a complex world, not so different from ours, where very few are either bad or good. It also offers us a journey into the medieval Middle eastern world and I never felt so utterly lost and out of place as when I tuned over the last page of this book. Thank you, S.A Chakraborty!