I have read very few books that mention djinn but of those this next book seems to be one of the better ones. The City of Brass is the first book in the Daevabad trilogy by S. A. Chakraborty and starts the story of Nahri, a young woman living in Cairo, and Ali, prince Alizayd Al-Quatani living in Daevabad. Nahri wishes to train as a doctor and is working to save up the money to do so when she unintentionally summons the djinn known as Dara. In doing so both her and Dara discover that she may actually be shafit instead of human, this means that she is part djinn and part human with at least some djinn abilities. More specifically, she may be part nahid djinn which is a line of healers that was supposedly wiped out around the time Nahri was born. Dara decides that for Nahri’s own protection she should go to Daevabad. A city ruled by the Al-Quatani family who played a role in wiping out the nahid and are well known for their immense cruelty towards shafit. Ali is struggling with his own role as a prince due to his belief that the shafit are being unfairly treated by the djinn and wishes to help them without actively betraying his own family. As events and people converge in Daevabad things quickly become exceedingly dangerous for all involved.
This book was way more complex in many ways than I was expecting. That being said I am not entirely sure what I was actually expecting. The characters were fascinating as they were so well fleshed out. Nahri was a young woman wanting to study medicine but had raised herself on the streets so was also a well accomplished thief and con artist who was extremely reluctant to trust people. The conflict that this created inside her, wanting to protect people but not wanting to trust them, was a powerful motivator for her and created some interesting movements for her over the course of the book. This dichotomy was unusual but very interesting to see play out. At the same time we also see something similar with our other protagonist, Ali, as he wishes to protect his people, all of his people including the shafit, but not betray his family in the process. This also creates an interesting tension within him as he feels frequently torn between one or the other and doesn’t always know what is the correct choice to make. Perhaps even more interesting is how these lead to both clashes and friendship between the two once they meet. It really feels like this story is very character driven as outside of a few things the story is driven by the choices they make and their interactions with the people around them. In addition to the complex characters we also see a pretty complex plot as well. Mind you the complexity is heavily influenced by the unique and complex setting that is used for the story. Instead of integrating the djinn characters into existing cities the story has created several entirely fictional cities based in our own familiar world and within those cities a rather complex political system that is loosely similar to existing middle east political systems. This adds several layers to the plot because the characters have to navigate that complex political system in order to do practically anything. I found the complexity rather refreshing as it is not something you see in a lot of literature. Overall, a pretty good book and one that I would feel fine giving four out of five stars.
As you have probably gathered this book is fantasy, and is heavily based around the concept of djinn and is located in the middle east. If you enjoy fantasy than you might enjoy this book, at least you should consider trying it. However, if you don’t want to deal with books based in the middle east for whatever reason that is fine but I would still recommend you try it. In fact, that is probably the only part of this story that might be problematic for some people as due to being set in that region it also includes some elements of that culture so there are references to things like arranged marriages. The book is considered an adult book but I would see no problems with also suggesting it for the young adult or teen age range as there is no content I would say is inappropriate or unsuitable. Basically, it is a pretty good book that I rather enjoyed and suggest you should consider trying. As always feel free to share your thoughts about it in the comments.