Packed with political intrigue, morally grey characters, and immersive world-building. Finally a good fantasy! I really enjoyed the Arab/Muslim mythology inspired world. 

I loved the character work, though the characters themselves aren't necessarily loveable. They are deeply flawed, and thus the relationships that are born between them are similarly flawed. The relationships in general (romantic, familial, platonic, and even culturally) are complex and built on literal centuries of information. Because of this, the relationships tied perfectly together with the political plotline, and made every scene a fun game of looking into the deeper meanings of character's words and actions, and the possible ripple effect of consequences caused by split-second decisions.

If you like political intrigue, this is the book for you, but if you struggle with politics you might find this book super overwhelming. There are a lot of creatures and tribes, with a rich and deep history that causes complex issues in the world, and each character has their own personal motivations that can sometimes be a lot to follow. 

Chakraborty's writing is well done. I appreciated the fact that she seems to be well aware of which scenes and conversations are worth including, and which can be cut, or shown in different ways. It really cut down on unnecessary exposition dumping and unnecessary action for the sake of action. Some things happened off-page, but were brought up in conversation between characters later, so we still felt like we were part of the world without having to sit through scenes that weren't really relevant to the theme of the book. Her prose is simple and straightforward, with a good rhythm that makes it easy to read the kind of long chapters. 

Because of Chakraborty's skilled writing, the world-building was excellent; although characters did at times have a tendency to info-dump, the author knew when to end it and keep it from droning on into a lecture. She didn't feel the need to explain every little detail of the world and the magic system. Some things were mysterious, something that the Daeva barely understood, which made the world feel magical and otherworldly. It also saved the author from plothole pitfalls by keeping some things nebulous and unexplained.

The pacing of the book was a bit off in the first 30% or so, but I understand that it was meant to be time spent with our characters to make the rest of the book pay off. You might find it a bit slow, but once they reach Daevabad around the 40% mark, the political intrigue takes off sprinting and never slows down.