The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy #1) by S.A. Chakraborty

Amy   

fantasy, action/suspense, young adult

Nahri is a street urchin in Cairo, stealing and swindling to make a living.  She accidentally summons and gets herself involved with strange people and must flee the only home she has ever known in order to save her life.  Magic, action, and political intrigue ensue. 

The adventure in The City of Brass was fun and the tribes of people and the different types of magical creatures were all creative. But this novel had plenty of flaws. It was never explained how Dara’s initial opinion of Nahri changed and developed from finding her an obnoxious brat (which she was) to respecting and liking her. Yes, she did get less annoying later but the reader never benefited from seeing the gradual growth. Instead, she was suddenly treated differently and acting differently at the change of a chapter and without explanation. Additionally, the politics were often difficult to follow and understand. People’s opinions and actions were inconsistent. There were too many tribes to keep track of. It sometimes felt like S.A. Chakraborty had realized she was in a hole and needed to create some sort of back-story to make the current situation work so she just declared that something had happened earlier without actually taking the time and making the effort to weave that circumstance into the previous storyline. However, despite its flaws, I enjoyed the ride overall and hope the sequel will be less clunky and the characters better developed. I also liked reading about Egypt and learning a little about the culture and belief systems.  I also like the cover art.