book.dreamblog’s Book Reviews!

The Daevabad Trilogy Books 3 and 4: The Empire of Gold and The River of Silver (by S.A. Chakraborty) *Warning: This review contains spoilers* The Empire of Gold Wow. Simply that much must be said. Because this series absolutely blew me away.  A large portion of my feelings about the final book in the Daevabad Trilogy , The Empire of Gold , are similar to my feelings about the second book. It captivated me from start to finish, and I plowed through it. I loved the lore, the politics, I loved the characters and their arcs.  Actually, the character arcs for all three of our protagonists were definitely the highlight of this entire novel.  First, starting with Alizayd. I greatly enjoyed the exploration with the other half of his heritage and Marid roots, which allows him water-based powers rather than fire-based powers, which are the custom of Daevabad. It tied perfectly into his miraculous survival of going into the lake earlier in the series. While it was difficult to accep...

The Deavabad Trilogy Book Two: The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty  *Warning: This review contains spoilers*  Summary & Review  Ok, so when I say that I devoured this book, I mean, I literally devoured it. My hardcover copy of The Kingdom of Copper is 600 pages long, and I read it in approximately two sittings. I should specify, I don’t actually read at lightning speed. I love reading, and for that reason, I like to savor reading. I read slow. But I was physically incapable of reading The Kingdom of Copper slowly because I was just so invested in what would happen next with every chapter I read. There aren’t a lot of series that exist where I feel that the second book was an improvement over the first. These instances are rare, and The Daevabad Trilogy is one of those rare instances. I had issues with the initial pacing of the first book (though it picked up quite a bit during the second half), but this book didn’t have any of those issues for me. It was the pe...

The Daevabad Trilogy Book One:  The City of Brass  by S.A. Chakraborty  *Warning: This review contains spoilers* *Content Warning* This review mentions genocide. Summary & Review   I was not expecting to end up loving this book as much as I did. Towards the beginning of the book, I was quite underwhelmed by it, despite my high expectations. Nahri was a great protagonist right from the start (and remained so the whole trilogy), but there was just so much going on at the start of The City of Brass. It felt like a lot of info-dumping in places, with Dara's constant explaining about the history and lore of Daevabad and the key differences between Daevas and Djinn and Shafit to Nahri. Keeping track of the lore when it was only being told to me and not actually shown thus far in the story felt exhausting at times. On top of that, a lot of these early chapters were about Nahri and Dara journeying to Daevabad, and I'm not a huge fan of exclusive travel chapters in books,...

  The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller  *This review contains spoilers*   Content Warning This review mentions rape.  Introduction  First and foremost, I am not the type of person who feels compelled to give highly popular book glowing reviews just because everyone else does. I have no problem giving my honest opinion on them. I'm giving this novel a good review, not because of the hype, but because I genuinely feel it deserves it.  The Song of Achilles is a Greek mythology retelling by Madeline Miller that covers the events of Homer's The Iliad, but instead of being told from Achilles' perspective, it is told by his companion Patroclus. There has been quite a deal of speculation about the nature of Achilles and Patroclus' relationship as written by Homer--were they really cousins? Were they actually lovers? Or were they simply just really close friends? As far as the actual Iliad goes, I don't suppose we'll ever know, but in The Song of Achilles, Mille...

  Circe by Madeline Miller *This review contains spoilers* Content Warning This review mentions rape. Introduction  I want to preface this review by saying that I read this book concurrent with the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan, which is another Greek Mythology based retelling, just as Circe is. They're not the same, as Percy Jackson is a modern mythology retelling geared towards children and young adults, and Circe is adult literature that actually takes place in the ancient Greek setting. There is some overlap in characters, however.  I'm not sure if it helped me or hurt me to read these two retellings at the same time, but I'm leaning towards helped. The Percy Jackson series often explained who a particular mythological figure was to the reader, and it made it easier for me to understand the story, as I'm not familiar with all the major and minor Greek myth figures. Circe was written in more of an in-universe context that didn't give the reader explanation...

  Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan This review will encompass both individual reviews for the five books in the Percy Jackson series (written by Rick Riordan) and the series review. *This review contains spoilers* Content Warning This review will address the series' subtle explorations of domestic/child abuse. The Lightning Thief The Lightning Thief was truly a great start to a really great series, and it certainly didn't waste any time with the exposition as the first chapter dove headfirst into the story and the initial plot point right away. I would have appreciated (as an adult reader) perhaps a little more time in the exposition, getting to know Percy and his relationships with Grover, his mother, and his horrific stepfather before delving into the Greek mythology of the story. However, I understand that this is a children's/middle grade fantasy story, which means that getting to the action right from the start is probably the best call to hook a young r...