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sas_lk's review
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I don't have words. I want to be in N.K. Jemisin's brain. This novel is the definition of a masterpiece. There are literally no faults, this woman is incredible.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Xenophobia, and Racism
Moderate: Sexual harassment
Minor: Racial slurs, Rape, and Police brutality
immovabletype's review
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Antisemitism, Cursing, Homophobia, Racism, Sexual assault, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Body horror, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, and Violence
Minor: Drug abuse, Abortion, Cancer, Colonisation, Death of parent, Miscarriage, Police brutality, Fatphobia, and Rape
britgirlreading's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
hopeful
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
Moderate: Sexism
Minor: Rape and Drug use
breadwitchery's review
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism, Xenophobia, Racism, Transphobia, and Homophobia
Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Domestic abuse, and Violence
Minor: Police brutality, Cursing, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Rape, Cancer, Alcoholism, and Abortion
qcontinuum's review
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Minor: Rape
boneloose's review
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
The City We Became is a book that explores the idea of cities growing to have such cultural significance and value that they become alive-- but the birthing process into a human avatar(s) is laborous and painful, and it takes a careful process to prevent an Enemy from turning it into a stillbirth. It truly was a love letter to New York that I don't think I was able to appreciate as much as a person who has never lived there, but that I can see being so lovely to read as someone from there. This is my first N.K. Jemisin and while I can see the acclaim in the ways she wrote the action scenes, the other parts of the book were honestly pretty disappointing and didn't hold up to what I expected from all the incredible things I've heard about her work. I'll still probably give The Broken Earth trilogy a go, but I was expecting a lot more than I got from this book in terms of the non-action scenes and the pacing.
The Good:
The action scenes as I said were so incredibly well-written! I've never had an easier time playing a movie in my head of what's going on while I read. A lot of the action-based scenes also read almost like fleshed out stage directions at times (in a good way). I think a screen adaptation of this would be incredibly fun to watch and not too difficult to accurately make.
The Bad:
The prose in non-action scenes was written in a way that was so personally grating I almost DNF-ed the book. Rather than letting atmosphere and tension build by trusting the reader to understand the shown character reactions and through writing choices, a lot of it was extremely dampened by a very heavy-handed "pointing out" of what the reader was supposed to glean.
A non-spoiler-y excerpt to illustrate what I mean:
The Good:
The action scenes as I said were so incredibly well-written! I've never had an easier time playing a movie in my head of what's going on while I read. A lot of the action-based scenes also read almost like fleshed out stage directions at times (in a good way). I think a screen adaptation of this would be incredibly fun to watch and not too difficult to accurately make.
The Bad:
The prose in non-action scenes was written in a way that was so personally grating I almost DNF-ed the book. Rather than letting atmosphere and tension build by trusting the reader to understand the shown character reactions and through writing choices, a lot of it was extremely dampened by a very heavy-handed "pointing out" of what the reader was supposed to glean.
A non-spoiler-y excerpt to illustrate what I mean:
"The white things came off of that woman when I got rid of the others," Brooklyn says. She's hiding it well, but her confident facade has slipped a little at the sight of the dog. The dog makes this something insidious, and ominous.
The paragraphs leading up to this excerpt showing the characters' reactions to the dog, and the way the sighting of the dog was framed in the prose made it incredibly clear that the dog marked the situation as particularly insiduous and ominous. This kind of thing was spelled out like this several different times in non-action scenes. Even just removing that sentence overtly explaining it would have made the tone a lot more tense. It was frustrating reading a book aimed at adults that didn't trust its audience to piece together the tone we were supposed to gather. Other ways the book was particularly heavy-handed included characters pointing out in dialogue several different times that what was happening "sure seemed Lovecraftian!". Like, maybe have someone point it out once, but I think it happened at minimum 6 or 7 times.
Also, while I loved most of the action scenes, the climax disappointed me a lot. It was ramping up so much and so intensely over 100 pages or so only for the actual climactic battle to wrap up in about a page and a half. Also, the particular thing that the characters are figuring out how to do for pretty much the entire novel literally happens off screen! We flash forward in the last chapter and it's happened, but I don't understand why there would be so much intense focus on making it happen to not even depict it directly. Also, the ending was less concrete than I expected it to me, but that's on me for not realizing this was the first book in a series rather than a standalone. Even so, this type of ending felt almost worst than a cliffhanger. The tension was ramping up so much that I read the most tense 80 or so pages in that frantically page-turning way only for it to just... fizzle out with no real gratifying Final Battle. The complete 180 from "incredibly high stakes rising action" to "flash forward 3 weeks where everything was fine" with only a page or two in between of the characters Fully Fighting was really jarring and made the ending pretty unsatisfying in a way that I don't think reading the sequel would resolve.
Also, I really wasn't a fan of the at times almost out of nowhere graphic descriptions of genitalia that happened two or three different times throughout the book. I also don't think the attempted rape needed to be nearly as graphic as it was (chapter where the staten island avatar goes out to her pool/backyard and interacts with the person sleeping on the lounge chair; around page 270 in the US hardback edition). I can see how having it as an event informed the actions of the character later in the book, but definitely feel that how overtly it was described didn't lend much more than shock value to the plot.
All in all, the concept was incredibly intriguing but the overall execution left a lot to be desired for me. I think it would work really well as a movie with how vivid the imagery in the action scenes were, but I don't think it worked as well as a novel. That type of tapering off at the end is something I'm more forgiving of when there's a roughly 2 hour screen time to keep to but is a lot more frustrating when the author could have easily added another 20 or 50 or even 100 pages to flesh it out more thoroughly. Definitely won't reread it and I don't think I'll continue with the series, but I might watch a screen adaptation depending on what scenes make the final cut.
Also, while I loved most of the action scenes, the climax disappointed me a lot. It was ramping up so much and so intensely over 100 pages or so only for the actual climactic battle to wrap up in about a page and a half. Also, the particular thing that the characters are figuring out how to do for pretty much the entire novel literally happens off screen! We flash forward in the last chapter and it's happened, but I don't understand why there would be so much intense focus on making it happen to not even depict it directly. Also, the ending was less concrete than I expected it to me, but that's on me for not realizing this was the first book in a series rather than a standalone. Even so, this type of ending felt almost worst than a cliffhanger. The tension was ramping up so much that I read the most tense 80 or so pages in that frantically page-turning way only for it to just... fizzle out with no real gratifying Final Battle. The complete 180 from "incredibly high stakes rising action" to "flash forward 3 weeks where everything was fine" with only a page or two in between of the characters Fully Fighting was really jarring and made the ending pretty unsatisfying in a way that I don't think reading the sequel would resolve.
Also, I really wasn't a fan of the at times almost out of nowhere graphic descriptions of genitalia that happened two or three different times throughout the book. I also don't think the attempted rape needed to be nearly as graphic as it was (chapter where the staten island avatar goes out to her pool/backyard and interacts with the person sleeping on the lounge chair; around page 270 in the US hardback edition). I can see how having it as an event informed the actions of the character later in the book, but definitely feel that how overtly it was described didn't lend much more than shock value to the plot.
All in all, the concept was incredibly intriguing but the overall execution left a lot to be desired for me. I think it would work really well as a movie with how vivid the imagery in the action scenes were, but I don't think it worked as well as a novel. That type of tapering off at the end is something I'm more forgiving of when there's a roughly 2 hour screen time to keep to but is a lot more frustrating when the author could have easily added another 20 or 50 or even 100 pages to flesh it out more thoroughly. Definitely won't reread it and I don't think I'll continue with the series, but I might watch a screen adaptation depending on what scenes make the final cut.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Xenophobia, Sexual content, and Sexual harassment
Moderate: Homophobia, Antisemitism, and Sexism
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Ableism, Addiction, and Transphobia
readwithria's review
medium-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
2.0
This book was 👏🏻 not 👏🏻 the 👏🏻 vibe 👏🏻
I have a few complaints that I can voice, and many that I can’t. Here’s my “I just finished this fucking book” review.
1. I don’t like Lovecraftian horror. That’s not the book’s fault
2. There are too many POV characters for a 435 page book, and while they (mostly) have distinct voices they don’t have actual personality traits because they’re the personification of places
3. What exactly is the plot? The characters don’t know what they’re doing for 75% of the book
4. Aislyn, even as an Americanization of Aislin, would not be pronounced anything like island. It’s ASH-lyn. Ais makes an ash sound in Gaelic.
5. Speaking of Aislyn, she’s so stupid. This woman is not in her 30s, there’s absolutely no way. She doesn’t feel like a complete adult (or a complete person)
6. There are some, I don’t know exactly what to call the parenthetical but maybe asides is the right word? Anyway there are asides in this book that made me really dislike the writing style. I also don’t like how vague the writing is. I think this book would have benefitted from being in third person instead of first person.
Okay, now on to the couple of things I did like. I really liked Aislyn’s mom. I think she was one of the most compelling characters in the whole book. Give me a piece of literary fiction about that entire family and I’d be happy. I also liked Veneza a lot, she was great.
Note: the characters I like are all secondary characters. I have exactly no thoughts about most of the boroughs. Bronca is fine though.
Anyway, I will not be reading the sequel. I will, however, be reading The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms later this month.
I have a few complaints that I can voice, and many that I can’t. Here’s my “I just finished this fucking book” review.
1. I don’t like Lovecraftian horror. That’s not the book’s fault
2. There are too many POV characters for a 435 page book, and while they (mostly) have distinct voices they don’t have actual personality traits because they’re the personification of places
3. What exactly is the plot? The characters don’t know what they’re doing for 75% of the book
4. Aislyn, even as an Americanization of Aislin, would not be pronounced anything like island. It’s ASH-lyn. Ais makes an ash sound in Gaelic.
5. Speaking of Aislyn, she’s so stupid. This woman is not in her 30s, there’s absolutely no way. She doesn’t feel like a complete adult (or a complete person)
6. There are some, I don’t know exactly what to call the parenthetical but maybe asides is the right word? Anyway there are asides in this book that made me really dislike the writing style. I also don’t like how vague the writing is. I think this book would have benefitted from being in third person instead of first person.
Okay, now on to the couple of things I did like. I really liked Aislyn’s mom. I think she was one of the most compelling characters in the whole book. Give me a piece of literary fiction about that entire family and I’d be happy. I also liked Veneza a lot, she was great.
Note: the characters I like are all secondary characters. I have exactly no thoughts about most of the boroughs. Bronca is fine though.
Anyway, I will not be reading the sequel. I will, however, be reading The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms later this month.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism, Misogyny, Emotional abuse, and Racism
Moderate: Rape, Sexual harassment, and Antisemitism
sarah984's review against another edition
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0
I just can't see what seemingly everyone else saw in this book. Bland prose (everyone’s thoughts and motivations are listed like we might otherwise miss them, like "[character] thinks dark things are evil because she sees that in the media" is essentially an actual sentence in this novel) padded with pointless bickering and boring New York in-jokes. Every character is an ethnic stereotype and they all sound so similar to one another that I kept forgetting one of them was supposed to be 70 until she brought up Stonewall again. The antagonist’s minions are like cartoon villains and they're all written in the most cringe-inducing way possible.
I did like the idea behind how the antagonist’s plan worked, and using white and light colours as something dangerous. Unfortunately, the one interesting city formation concept is dropped almost immediately after it comes up and the ending didn't make any sense with what was already established.
I feel like the author could have saved me a few hours of reading time by just typing up a Tumblr post about how much she hates Staten Island and leaving it at that.
I did like the idea behind how the antagonist’s plan worked, and using white and light colours as something dangerous. Unfortunately, the one interesting city formation concept is dropped almost immediately after it comes up and the ending didn't make any sense with what was already established.
I feel like the author could have saved me a few hours of reading time by just typing up a Tumblr post about how much she hates Staten Island and leaving it at that.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Xenophobia
Moderate: Body horror, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Sexual harassment, and Antisemitism
Minor: Car accident, Classism, Colonisation, Drug use, Islamophobia, Police brutality, Stalking, Cancer, Cannibalism, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, and Mental illness
laurenkimoto's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
As per usual some disjointed thoughts about this book
- Amazing cover: the matte city scape with the shiny tentacles and colour detailing ties in so nicely to the story *chef kiss* The person who designed the cover deserves an award
- Chapter titles really should make a comeback
- We love some reluctant heroes who really just want to say to hell with saving the world just let me live my life in peace
- I am a fool I did not realize this was part of a series and now I’m sitting here waiting for the next book :(
- The petty book hill I will die on is that short chapters are superior to long chapters
- This is different than other fantasy books partially because it’s urban fantasy but also because the first half of the book the characters don’t know what’s going on so you don’t know what’s going on. Jemisin doesn’t info dump or use a naive character at the start to explain this world but rather you learn as the characters learn which I find is a fresh take.
- This book has the most diverse set of characters I have ever come across and it does so without any “token” characters because their identity and diversity is tied in to who/what they are. With this comes addressing so many timely and everlasting issues and Jemisin does so without sacrificing plot, pacing or anything else.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cursing, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Colonisation, Cultural appropriation, Racism, Police brutality, Gaslighting, Abortion, Body shaming, Addiction, Alcohol, Antisemitism, Homophobia, Islamophobia, Lesbophobia, Racial slurs, Rape, Transphobia, Bullying, Drug use, Religious bigotry, Biphobia, Classism, and Violence
marissasa's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This wasn't a book I think I'd pick up on my own but I'm glad I did for the Read in Color Book Club's February pick and stepped out of my usual reading genres. I genuinely enjoyed the weirdness and creativity of the concept of cities in the world personified, despite the story being a little slow at the start. Once we got a look into each character and their personalities I started to enjoy the book and felt compelled to know what would happen once they all came together. I love "found family" tropes, especially ones where the characters have to work to trust each other and build relationships. It was also great to see a diverse range of protagonists not just in ethnicity, but sexuality, age, and general walk of life too. The enemy in this narrative is so fascinating that it can be so foreign and alien-like yet also all too familiar in the way it uses white-supremacist and colonizer language as weapons. Overall I'm intrigued and curious to see what happens in the next installments of the series, especially when the scope gets wider and we learn more about the summit what effects a city's birth or downfall have on the rest of the world. Also, the audiobook played a huge part in my enjoyment of this one and I don't think I would have been as immersed in the story without it. The narrators were great and did a lot for the overall characterizations of the main cast, as well as great world building with the sound effects and editing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Islamophobia, Body horror, Colonisation, Rape, Alcoholism, Classism, Cursing, Misogyny, Violence, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual harassment, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual assault, and Xenophobia
Minor: Cancer, Drug abuse, and Drug use