Brief Synopsis
“City of Gold” is the fifth and final book in the Aru Shah series. With their celestial weapons gone, the Pandavas feel hopeless to stop the Sleeper from acquiring the nectar of immortality and destroying the world. How do they stand a chance?
Content Warnings: Violence (PG)
What Do I Think?
In my previous review, I noted how disappointed I was by the end of the fourth book, primarily because of its overlong epilogue that had too much “hand of the author” going on to get the story where it needed to be for the start of this one. While “Nectar of Immortality” certainly feels hindered at its start by its predecessor, once the story gets going…it gets going.
“Nectar of Immortality” is very focused on what it needs to get done – Aru Shah needs to stop her father, the evil Sleeper, from acquiring the titular nectar of immortality before he destroys the world. Everything she and the other Pandavas do is focused on getting to that goal, and so the final chapter in this series ends up being the most clear of all the novels. Chokshi’s writing remains top-notch when it comes to balancing both humor and seriousness, and this book continues to provide the characters with much-needed development so that they can become the champions they are meant to be.
Something that continues to surprise me (in a good way!) is the amount of worldbuilding taking place. This is the final novel of the series, and so one might expect to know just about everything you’d need to in order to comprehend the finale. However, there is still a good amount of new characters and places that the story explores which hasn’t been seen before. In lesser series, this could be a glaring weakness: a crucial piece of information deliberately concealed by the author in order to get one last gut-punch of surprise from the reader. In “Nectar of Immortality”, however, I am happy to say that this is not the case: characters and information that is new to us is so simply because it wasn’t relevant to Aru Shah or her friends before. Thus, the worldbuilding continues to be a massive strength of Chokshi’s writing.
If I had to highlight any weakness in this novel, it would have to be the handling of the Sleeper’s defeat. Not to spoil anything, but his defeat was very fast and left little time to process. For a character who has served as the primary antagonist throughout this series, it did not seem a fitting end to his story.
Overall, however, “Nectar of Immortality” is a delightful ending to an overall delightful series. Full of heart, courage, and wonder, it provides a satisfying conclusion to an action-packed adventure that any reader will absolutely love.
Jacob Ryckman 