Aru Shah and the City of Gold (2021)

*Premise spoilers, which involves a spoiler from book one that’s been an ongoing part of the plot, as well as the ending of The Tree of Wishes.*

While each of the Pandava books has leveled up so far, I feel like this one is maybe a slight step down from the third installment in the series. More than anything, that’s a testament to how excellent The Tree of Wishes is, because The City of Gold is still pretty great. With another new character added to the main crew, the story takes some new twists, even as the narrative gets a tiny bit “quest, rinse, repeat.”

At the end of The Tree of Wishes, Aru was taken by the Sleeper. In his home/hideaway, she meets Kara, who says she’s the Sleeper’s daughter. The thing is, Aru is also the Sleeper’s daughter, a fact that has caused her huge amounts of turmoil over the course of the series. She’s suspicious, but Kara helps her escape, and they return together to the rest of the Pandavas, Aiden, and Rudy. With the Sleeper and his army on the move, our heroes have to beat him to the golden city of Lanka, in the hope of convincing the god of wealth to lend them his elite nairrata warriors.

There’s plenty to like here. Kara is a really interesting character, between her sad/possibly untrustworthy backstory, her perspective on the Sleeper that no one else has, and her geeky love of etymology. Like all the kid characters gradually added to the series, she immediately brings a new dynamic to the group. I like seeing how Aru is simultaneously wary of Kara, sympathetic towards her, and envious of her.

Beyond that, as always, some of the quests are really neat and creative. For (I believe) the first time, we get a chapter that’s not from Aru’s perspective, which is fascinating. And while I saw some of the turns of the plot coming, the climax is definitely exciting.

As I said, there are times when the quests stack on top of each other just a bit too much. And I get it—I read all the Percy Jackson books, and I’ve happily made it through the first four books in the Pandava quintet. There are quests within quests within quests, it’s a whole thing. But this book was the first time I was reminded a little of The Rise of Skywalker’s penchant for, “We have to go to the place, to find the thing, that will point us to the tool, that will take us to the map, to get us to the place we really need to go.” Again, though, the various mini-quests themselves are still interesting and well done.  And my main gripe remains, “I really loved The Tree of Wishes and this book isn’t quite as fantastic as that one.” So it’s barely a knock against the book.

Only one more Pandava installment to go. I’m sure our heroes will prevail, but how?!?