2024 Book Review Jasmine Throne Tasha Suri
A Slow Walk Through a Beautiful Garden.
The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri is a wonderful, beautifully written book. I was bored through most of it. That isn’t necessarily the fault of the author, I suspect it has more to do with my own expectations and preferences for pacing. However, I felt as though a large portion of the book was spent watching characters naval-gaze. This book definitely qualifies as a slow burn in my categorization. I’m a guy who reads Brandon Sanderson and that guy is famous for the long drawn out books then a big climactic ending, but the Jasmine Throne, in my opinion, only really got exciting in the last 15 chapters. I wish that there’d been more to the book earlier on.
Which is a shame for me to say because honestly this is a beautifully written book. The descriptions are wonderful. The world is absolutely well built. I very much connected with these characters. I think my problem though was that these characters for the most part wanted nothing more to do than sit in the room and be left alone. The main characters spend most of the book planning on how to ensure someone else can be doing something, and I think that’s maybe my biggest critique of the whole thing is I didn’t understand what my characters, the two primary heroines of the story, wanted for themselves out of all of this. What were they after? By the end of the book they both have a clear direction on what they’re going to be doing where their stories are going but early on it feels very much like we are witnessing two characters who just kind of are along for a ride then shoved into a spot at the end of the book. Too bad to me because these are great characters.
I will spend a moment here to talk about the setting. I absolutely loved the India-inspired everything here. It was described in lush detail, and I felt thoroughly transported to Ahiranya. The concept of the Rot, a magical disease sweeping the region’s capital, causing plants to grow from the infected person’s flesh is just wonderfully dark.
Plot and Pacing
The plot of Jasmine Throne largely felt like setup for a larger plot that is coming. The majority of the tension in the story centers on a nacent rebellion in the province of Ahiranya, but our characters have very little to do with that. Its threat to our heroes felt distant and philosophical rather than physical and immanent.
A large portion of the early page count is spent on the main characters’ getting to know each other in a locked room. It felt overly drawn out to me. Despite the relationship between Priya and Malini being the crux of this book, I found it actually kept either Priya or Malini from being all that interesting for a long time.
There is a certain amount of “Fisher King Thinking” in one of the plotlines, where just setting the right ruler upon the throne will fix all of the problems for the empire, and that line of thinking falls flat for me.
While the pace picked up in the final 15 chapters, it felt more like the beginning of the story than the end of it.
Plot and Pacing Score: 3/5
Characters
While well drawn and distinct, many of the characters in Jasmine throne fell flat to me. The two lead characters lacked ambition and drive while most of the actions that drive the plot were taken by others. Perhaps the character who was both the least and most interesting was Ashok; I’m not sure if I was supposed to get the impression he was unintelligent, but that’s what I got from him. He was a teenage boy angry at the world and striking back, with no plan on what would happen if he got his way. Simultaneous, he was at no point a threat to our main characters. Instead, he seemed to exist to take the darker actions characters like Bhumika and Priya could or should have been motivated to do.
Conversely, Rao seems to exist solely as Malini’s hype man. Despite the amount of screen time he spends trying to rescue Malini and how important he seems to be to their coup, I walked away from the book unsure what Rao was really getting out of all of this. Which is strange, because I should have; the emperor burned his sister alive.
Character Score: 3/5
Setting
Ahiranya is beautifully described, and the locations there felt very real to me. The characters all helped establish a strong sense of place, and Ahiranya’s place in the larger world of Parijatvipa. Details like the Rot, the Yaksa, and the Sacred Wood all helped to really bring home the mystical aspects of this otherwise very India-inspired setting.
The book makes efficient use of its settings by letting us become familiar with their mysteries. The Hirana in particular could be a metaphor for the entire book; a set of small rooms that give you the impression of ancient grandure, and I love it.
Setting Score: 4/5
Prose
This book was beautifully written. Gorgeous descriptions and absolutely wonderful expressions and turns of phrase. The author plays with sensor detail, particularly scent, in a way that I don’t often see in the books I read.
Prose Score: 5/5
Themes
This book plays with strong themes of duty, family, and loyalty, all very strongly on display in our main two characters, Priya and Malini. I found it very interesting that both had a violently abusive older brothers, both chose loyalty to their homes and families over their budding romance, and both
Themes Score: 5/5
Fun
I was bored by this book. A few occasional moments of levity and a kind of hilarious Shaun of the Dead-esque bit near the end, but otherwise not much to say I was excited by.
Fun Score: 2/5