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lavieemilyrose's review against another edition
5.0
Delightful, intense, terrifically fun. Bought and sent a copy to a loved one straightaway because what a gift of a novel. Eagerly awaiting the rest of the series.
acrogers's review against another edition
3.0
The City We Became is another one of those books I picked up with little understanding of what to expect. I’ve heard great things about N.K. Jemisin’s writing but hadn’t read any of her books before. In fact, I was under the impression this was more of a science fiction book than a fantasy book, so I was a little surprised when things got fantastical kind of fast. This book occasionally reminded me of [b:American Gods|30165203|American Gods (American Gods, #1)|Neil Gaiman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1462924585l/30165203._SY75_.jpg|1970226]. Sure enough, when I went to put the slipcover back on my hardcover copy, Neil Gaiman has blurbs on both the front and back of the book. I did like The City We Became better than I liked American Gods, however.
This book fell into a entertaining-and-ok-but-not-super-great category for me. I enjoyed the first half of the book, when the city avatars are introduced and have initial encounters with the “Woman in White.” I found most of the suspense and drama to be located in the first half of the book, actually. The end was a little anticlimactic, but this book is #1 in a series, so perhaps that’s why. I did find some of the dialogue heavy-handed, as many of the points the author was trying to make came through via the characters’ experiences. I’m not as upset as other readers about the stereotyping of the city and its boroughs (have you ever read a book set in or about NYC that didn’t stereotype, even ironically?). I think that such generalizations were necessary to create the avatars central to the book’s plot. The author seems to acknowledge as much in her remarks at the end of the book, as well as crediting individuals who did sensitivity reading, which was really cool to see. Based on some of those acknowledgements, I am sure there many subtleties and cultural elements to the plot that went over my head. I’m afraid a rather large component of the plot also went over my head (though I’m open to it becoming clearer in subsequent installments) — the whole multiverse thing seemed a little superfluous and unclear to me. Why do other universes care about cities in this one? What exactly does the enemy represent? What do they want? Simply to stop the birth of cities? Why? Given the clear cultural and societal parallels the author draws throughout the book, I was expecting the antagonist to have a clearer metaphor and message. I suppose there will always be arbitrary elements in fantasy plots, but I didn’t really buy in to this one.
Plot ambivalence aside, I did enjoy Jemisin’s writing and hope to read other books of hers. The City We Became is a unique take on the New York City novel, and earnest in its message.
This book fell into a entertaining-and-ok-but-not-super-great category for me. I enjoyed the first half of the book, when the city avatars are introduced and have initial encounters with the “Woman in White.” I found most of the suspense and drama to be located in the first half of the book, actually. The end was a little anticlimactic, but this book is #1 in a series, so perhaps that’s why. I did find some of the dialogue heavy-handed, as many of the points the author was trying to make came through via the characters’ experiences. I’m not as upset as other readers about the stereotyping of the city and its boroughs (have you ever read a book set in or about NYC that didn’t stereotype, even ironically?). I think that such generalizations were necessary to create the avatars central to the book’s plot. The author seems to acknowledge as much in her remarks at the end of the book, as well as crediting individuals who did sensitivity reading, which was really cool to see. Based on some of those acknowledgements, I am sure there many subtleties and cultural elements to the plot that went over my head. I’m afraid a rather large component of the plot also went over my head (though I’m open to it becoming clearer in subsequent installments) — the whole multiverse thing seemed a little superfluous and unclear to me. Why do other universes care about cities in this one? What exactly does the enemy represent? What do they want? Simply to stop the birth of cities? Why? Given the clear cultural and societal parallels the author draws throughout the book, I was expecting the antagonist to have a clearer metaphor and message. I suppose there will always be arbitrary elements in fantasy plots, but I didn’t really buy in to this one.
Plot ambivalence aside, I did enjoy Jemisin’s writing and hope to read other books of hers. The City We Became is a unique take on the New York City novel, and earnest in its message.
wormsinmysalad's review against another edition
4.0
This is the first book of N.K. Jemisin that I have read, and I'm grateful to have found her! This novel was easy to settle into immediately, and listening to it on audio was easy due to a well-produced performance. The story has the right balance of suspense/tension and resolution.
a330neo's review against another edition
3.0
Okay, enjoyed this book, but I have a few complaints.
First, the good stuff. The premise is AMAZING. I LOVE it when inanimate things are alive, and cities being living entities is RAD AS HELL. I adored whenever the book was focused on that stuff.
However, sometimes the book just... wasn't focused on that stuff for long stretches. I got bored of hearing about the art gallery after three freaking chapters of it. Get back to the ALIVE CITY!
Also the ending SUCKED. Didn't even feel like it happened. Will talk about this more in the spoiler section.
However, did very much enjoy the premise and I'm glad I read it just for that.
Funny side note: I mentioned reading this book to my english teacher, and he said the first chapter was originally a stand-alone short story, which is CRAZY because I was reading it and thought "huh this feels like a short story."
Honestly, maybe just read the short story...
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I got to that point in the book where I was like "oooh... wonder how they're going to fit the climax into so few pages!!!!" and then they didn't.
There was such a cool LIVING CITY fight at the very beginning, and you're telling me they're going to cop out with a "oooh energy wave yippee the good guys win" thing?!?!?!
And it felt like nothing tied up the Staten Island arc. Her arc started as "I'm racist" and ended as "I'm still racist, and I neither helped further the plot or had any character development the entire book." She was just kinda there. They didn't even address how Staten Island now has an ALIEN CITY in it??? It was like mentioned in one sentence and then they were like oh well. Too bad.
First, the good stuff. The premise is AMAZING. I LOVE it when inanimate things are alive, and cities being living entities is RAD AS HELL. I adored whenever the book was focused on that stuff.
However, sometimes the book just... wasn't focused on that stuff for long stretches. I got bored of hearing about the art gallery after three freaking chapters of it. Get back to the ALIVE CITY!
Also the ending SUCKED. Didn't even feel like it happened. Will talk about this more in the spoiler section.
However, did very much enjoy the premise and I'm glad I read it just for that.
Funny side note: I mentioned reading this book to my english teacher, and he said the first chapter was originally a stand-alone short story, which is CRAZY because I was reading it and thought "huh this feels like a short story."
Honestly, maybe just read the short story...
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I got to that point in the book where I was like "oooh... wonder how they're going to fit the climax into so few pages!!!!" and then they didn't.
There was such a cool LIVING CITY fight at the very beginning, and you're telling me they're going to cop out with a "oooh energy wave yippee the good guys win" thing?!?!?!
And it felt like nothing tied up the Staten Island arc. Her arc started as "I'm racist" and ended as "I'm still racist, and I neither helped further the plot or had any character development the entire book." She was just kinda there. They didn't even address how Staten Island now has an ALIEN CITY in it??? It was like mentioned in one sentence and then they were like oh well. Too bad.
shinikage221's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
I do appreciate unique magic systems. I kind of wish their abilities got fleshed out a little more, they don't use them very often. But overall, it's a great story and I look forward to reading the sequel.
kittykate99's review against another edition
2.0
The rating is more on me than on this book. This is one of those books that I don't remember where I heard about it, and I don't remember putting it on hold, and now, once it came in and I read it and I don't think I understood it at all...this is definitely not in my wheelhouse.
e11en's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
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? No
4.0
netterknitter's review against another edition
5.0
Such an engaging read! Can’t wait to read book two!
ljcarey011's review against another edition
1.0
I really struggled with how to rate this one. Nearly the entire time reading it I kept thinking I would give it two stars, but I think that was mostly because I couldn't believe I thought a book by N.K. Jemisin was so bad and also because if I was going to finish a book (and I did finish it - by the skin of my teeth) I needed to believe it was worth two stars. I reached the end and I realized that other than a few moments of finding N.K. Jemisin's writing as brilliant as ever, I couldn't really find much appealing about it. I was trying to think who I would recommend this too and it would just be people who liked N.K. Jemisin and wanted to read her entire backlist and people who specifically asked me for fantasy stories set in NYC, written by an actual New Yorker. I would not recommend it to anyone "just because." So, 1 star.
My issues (there will be SPOILERS):
The book is tediously slow. The idea is thick and bulky but just in general the slow unspanning of the story takes forever and there's so much talking and explaining. Then, at the 70% mark one of the characters re-explains the entire thing to us. At this point you've either got it and you're tired of having it very slowly told to you when you've already connected to dots or you didn't get it and it's probably too late in the book for you and you bailed a long time ago. I was in the group of "got-it-quit-telling-me-the-same-things-from-five-different-view-points" side of things, so having it told yet again when the book was nearly done just slowed things even further.
The characters are dull. Oh. I liked them well enough. They're at least two dimensional, but they're also just tropes and stereotypes and I do not write that in a good way. I am not anti-trope and I recognize that stereotypes are sometimes useful shortcuts in writing but it wasn't all that enjoyable and it didn't feel magical it once again felt like "I get it - I understand what the stereotypes of NYC are - can we please move on?!"
I actually enjoy stories that imbue a place with a sense of self. I firmly think any fantasy that doesn't root itself in the land is a failure, but there's something totally unmagical about the place and the people? I can't even explain it except to say that once again I think it's very slow and we have to be introduced to five different people which takes so long and gets so repetitive that I just wanted it over and done with. I wish we'd just been given the archetypes and then they'd done stuff but everybody's got to have their intro and their moment and their realization and got old very, very fast.
Circling back to the stereotypes of people and place, the book is more lecture than fantasy. I can see why it would be divisive, because it's either preaching to the choir or alienating you. I am a part of that choir, but if I'm going to be lectured, I want a nonfiction book. That's not to say I don't read "issue books" among my fiction selections but this books, with its stereotypes and tropes and explanations was so heavy handed I just wanted to shout "I get it!" It was in fact, so heavy handed that it circled back around and almost because a parody of left wing criticism. Again, member of the choir, so it got to the point where I was just skimming because I at some point you get tired of everyone telling you the same da** thing.
The world building does not work. Or rather, it does not work in the way it needs to. Now, I do not like dark, dreary fiction where everyone is bad, but the rationalization in this story to make the good guys good is just ridiculous. I would have liked it better if this was "this is just the way things are" story, rather than taking a moment to have the "Indian" rationalize it with an allegory. (She's Native American - Lenape- and yes the fact that there is an actual Indian woman there makes the American Indian woman referring to herself as Indian multiple times very confusing for a bit.)
Again, spoilers but not really because I don't see how knowing this will affect your reading? New York is being born - it is becoming alive and it has six avatars (5 boroughs, 1 main) that are waking with it. The Woman in White is trying to stop them. Why is the Woman in White trying to stop them? Well, because when New York becomes alive, other multiverses die. One character expresses great trepidation at this - me too. Then another character explains that this is just how things are. You see, she's Lenape and someone took her deer hunting once so she could learn where her food comes from (I will never understand this idea that you have to see something die to understand its sacrifice - maybe I just have a better imagination and don't need to go hunting to know you should respect the lives that are given to feed an omnivore, but whatever, story full of tropes, yada, yada). The death of the deer and other animals so one person can live is given an example of that just being the way things are. If New York City is to live, then other things must die/be eaten by it. Except. Why does NYC have to live? It just sort of seems to be a thing that is happening. No one picks it or wakes it but it's going to happen anyway and it waking up and living resulting in other places/people dying is just a thing. But if it was "stillborn" (sort of a gross way of explaining things so maybe a trigger warning for that?), then the city keeps existing and things go on, and yes, the moment of "stillbirth" is bad but then why live at all? Why does it need to do that? Why does it do that? No idea. It's never clear why NYC MUST LIVE and others must die, rather than things just continue as they were. And that would be fine - don't rationalize it - let it just be a thing that happens. But the whole "it's like deer hunting" thing? Makes no sense. Almost every culture on earth has a thing against cannibalism. NYC is not hunting deer. It is killing its own kind just so it can live. There's no evidence there's a history of cities being attacked and this driving them to awaken. Rather, the Woman in White and her "people" have historically attacked as the city is waking to try to stop it and then moved on. And - yeah, I may get skewered for this - the Woman in White doesn't seem wrong here? Why should this NYC live at the cost of others? Why shouldn't they (the eldritch things) adapt and fight better? Oh, yes, the stereotypical archetypes she chooses to fight NYC are hateful and racist and terrible, but this is warfare and when you are fighting stereotypes, you fight with stereotypes (and yes, the stereotypes are shallow and obvious on both sides, which adds to the dullness. I do not like men's rights groups or white supremacists but the blatant stereotypes here once again seem almost a parody in their obviousness and the slow, dullness of the story doesn't help this.) I am meant to be okay with trillions of people dying because omnivores eat meat. Except the meat feasted on in this story is one's own kind. That's not deer hunting.
Let's get to the bad guys. Again, stereotypes. Again, heavy handed. Again, preaching to the choir. I'm struggling to decide if Jemisin did something very interesting and chose white supremacy, men's rights groups, and corporations as the stereotype the bad guy acted through as a commentary on this being a more general, American issue, or if there was just heavy leaning on certain more neutral stereotypes about NYC and then shying away from the negative stereotypes that would be more NYC specific - a sort of sanctifying of NYC stereotypes as good by hiding the bad. And honestly? I can't tell? I mean, I think as an outsider NYC specific stereotypes are drugs, homelessness, flooding subway stations, gangs. But when they get touched on (someone asks someone else if their husband died from drugs) they are immediately pushed away. I guess as someone who grew up in a much smaller town with a drug and gang issue thanks to the fact that we were on a crossroad between major cities (one of which was NYC), I don't think they needed to be in their as weapons or otherwise, but the generalized "bad guy" stereotypes felt a bit broad for the situation. Not to say racism, misogny, etc. aren't in NYC, they're everywhere, but is that really the most NYC weapon to wield against itself?
And finally, let's talk Staten Island. She's a young woman who has never left her island and has been very trapped under her father's racist, hateful views. She tries once to get off the island to the city and her agoraphobia makes her unable to do so. The awakening for the other characters are: a battle on a bridge, using a cab for a steed and an umbrella for a lance, with the help of a woman in the cab and then a fight in a park with the help of a roommate - during which one of the other boroughs shows up; a swimming pool suddenly becoming a void that tries to eat children which is killed with math and the children's grandmother and the character's aunt is there for support her until another borough shows up; a fight with creepy, crawly, alternate dimension things that is fought off with rapping, the other borough's and the character's family are there to help; a scary thing in a bathroom stall after which a friend is there to help, a creepy mural after which a friend is there to help and MRAs who show up and threaten to burn paintings/the building after which a friend and the burroughs show up to help. And then there's Staten Island. whose awakening is a threat of sexual assault and the person who shows up to help is... the Woman in White. For whom the boroughs show up only late into the game, after the Woman in White has worked her way in.
Now, let's be clear, Staten Island's been taught a lifetime of hate, and while she understands on one level that it's not right and her father is racist, she has also swallowed down unconscious biases. I am not going to pretend her unconcious racism is not bad. I am also not going to pretend that she is a traitor. Her violence is the most rational and normal of all of them which makes it hit close in many ways - it's not particularly fantastical, it's so everyday it digs in a bit. She has no support when it happens, except for the Woman and White. She is left alone for days and she is sheltered but she still clearly knows what's wrong within the things NYC battles, she's just sort of buried under it. If there's some attempt to allegory that she's bad because she never leaves her island and she only wants to be better and understands what's bad, just literally can't escape it - it sucks.
Also, let's talk sex. Staten Island gets threatened with assault. NYC pleasures Sao Paulo to try to thank him for getting him off the street - clearly he things he has to do this, rather than lust or want. NYC seems young, childlike, is called a black boy a couple of times and Manhattan shows up and lusts after him, a young person whose one interaction we've seen with sex and whose feelings around sex have been about payment, versus autonomy - I just found the desire for sex with someone you've never seen who probably has some shit to get over as very weird. Yes, in the end Manhattan isn't trying to pressure him but there's still clearly an inescapable knowledge that Manhattan sees you as something he wants to fuck and lusts after. Just all a bit much for me.
In general: stereotypes are so heavy they're a parody, slow, so preachy it sometimes feels like a parody, even as a member of the choir I just sort of wanted to get on with it so that I could find some magic rather than feel lectured too. At times, when the action was moving along and I wasn't having the world building told to me, I was enjoying it - maybe somewhere around the first third and the second third, but otherwise a slog to get through
My issues (there will be SPOILERS):
The book is tediously slow. The idea is thick and bulky but just in general the slow unspanning of the story takes forever and there's so much talking and explaining. Then, at the 70% mark one of the characters re-explains the entire thing to us. At this point you've either got it and you're tired of having it very slowly told to you when you've already connected to dots or you didn't get it and it's probably too late in the book for you and you bailed a long time ago. I was in the group of "got-it-quit-telling-me-the-same-things-from-five-different-view-points" side of things, so having it told yet again when the book was nearly done just slowed things even further.
The characters are dull. Oh. I liked them well enough. They're at least two dimensional, but they're also just tropes and stereotypes and I do not write that in a good way. I am not anti-trope and I recognize that stereotypes are sometimes useful shortcuts in writing but it wasn't all that enjoyable and it didn't feel magical it once again felt like "I get it - I understand what the stereotypes of NYC are - can we please move on?!"
I actually enjoy stories that imbue a place with a sense of self. I firmly think any fantasy that doesn't root itself in the land is a failure, but there's something totally unmagical about the place and the people? I can't even explain it except to say that once again I think it's very slow and we have to be introduced to five different people which takes so long and gets so repetitive that I just wanted it over and done with. I wish we'd just been given the archetypes and then they'd done stuff but everybody's got to have their intro and their moment and their realization and got old very, very fast.
Circling back to the stereotypes of people and place, the book is more lecture than fantasy. I can see why it would be divisive, because it's either preaching to the choir or alienating you. I am a part of that choir, but if I'm going to be lectured, I want a nonfiction book. That's not to say I don't read "issue books" among my fiction selections but this books, with its stereotypes and tropes and explanations was so heavy handed I just wanted to shout "I get it!" It was in fact, so heavy handed that it circled back around and almost because a parody of left wing criticism. Again, member of the choir, so it got to the point where I was just skimming because I at some point you get tired of everyone telling you the same da** thing.
The world building does not work. Or rather, it does not work in the way it needs to. Now, I do not like dark, dreary fiction where everyone is bad, but the rationalization in this story to make the good guys good is just ridiculous. I would have liked it better if this was "this is just the way things are" story, rather than taking a moment to have the "Indian" rationalize it with an allegory. (She's Native American - Lenape- and yes the fact that there is an actual Indian woman there makes the American Indian woman referring to herself as Indian multiple times very confusing for a bit.)
Again, spoilers but not really because I don't see how knowing this will affect your reading? New York is being born - it is becoming alive and it has six avatars (5 boroughs, 1 main) that are waking with it. The Woman in White is trying to stop them. Why is the Woman in White trying to stop them? Well, because when New York becomes alive, other multiverses die. One character expresses great trepidation at this - me too. Then another character explains that this is just how things are. You see, she's Lenape and someone took her deer hunting once so she could learn where her food comes from (I will never understand this idea that you have to see something die to understand its sacrifice - maybe I just have a better imagination and don't need to go hunting to know you should respect the lives that are given to feed an omnivore, but whatever, story full of tropes, yada, yada). The death of the deer and other animals so one person can live is given an example of that just being the way things are. If New York City is to live, then other things must die/be eaten by it. Except. Why does NYC have to live? It just sort of seems to be a thing that is happening. No one picks it or wakes it but it's going to happen anyway and it waking up and living resulting in other places/people dying is just a thing. But if it was "stillborn" (sort of a gross way of explaining things so maybe a trigger warning for that?), then the city keeps existing and things go on, and yes, the moment of "stillbirth" is bad but then why live at all? Why does it need to do that? Why does it do that? No idea. It's never clear why NYC MUST LIVE and others must die, rather than things just continue as they were. And that would be fine - don't rationalize it - let it just be a thing that happens. But the whole "it's like deer hunting" thing? Makes no sense. Almost every culture on earth has a thing against cannibalism. NYC is not hunting deer. It is killing its own kind just so it can live. There's no evidence there's a history of cities being attacked and this driving them to awaken. Rather, the Woman in White and her "people" have historically attacked as the city is waking to try to stop it and then moved on. And - yeah, I may get skewered for this - the Woman in White doesn't seem wrong here? Why should this NYC live at the cost of others? Why shouldn't they (the eldritch things) adapt and fight better? Oh, yes, the stereotypical archetypes she chooses to fight NYC are hateful and racist and terrible, but this is warfare and when you are fighting stereotypes, you fight with stereotypes (and yes, the stereotypes are shallow and obvious on both sides, which adds to the dullness. I do not like men's rights groups or white supremacists but the blatant stereotypes here once again seem almost a parody in their obviousness and the slow, dullness of the story doesn't help this.) I am meant to be okay with trillions of people dying because omnivores eat meat. Except the meat feasted on in this story is one's own kind. That's not deer hunting.
Let's get to the bad guys. Again, stereotypes. Again, heavy handed. Again, preaching to the choir. I'm struggling to decide if Jemisin did something very interesting and chose white supremacy, men's rights groups, and corporations as the stereotype the bad guy acted through as a commentary on this being a more general, American issue, or if there was just heavy leaning on certain more neutral stereotypes about NYC and then shying away from the negative stereotypes that would be more NYC specific - a sort of sanctifying of NYC stereotypes as good by hiding the bad. And honestly? I can't tell? I mean, I think as an outsider NYC specific stereotypes are drugs, homelessness, flooding subway stations, gangs. But when they get touched on (someone asks someone else if their husband died from drugs) they are immediately pushed away. I guess as someone who grew up in a much smaller town with a drug and gang issue thanks to the fact that we were on a crossroad between major cities (one of which was NYC), I don't think they needed to be in their as weapons or otherwise, but the generalized "bad guy" stereotypes felt a bit broad for the situation. Not to say racism, misogny, etc. aren't in NYC, they're everywhere, but is that really the most NYC weapon to wield against itself?
And finally, let's talk Staten Island. She's a young woman who has never left her island and has been very trapped under her father's racist, hateful views. She tries once to get off the island to the city and her agoraphobia makes her unable to do so. The awakening for the other characters are: a battle on a bridge, using a cab for a steed and an umbrella for a lance, with the help of a woman in the cab and then a fight in a park with the help of a roommate - during which one of the other boroughs shows up; a swimming pool suddenly becoming a void that tries to eat children which is killed with math and the children's grandmother and the character's aunt is there for support her until another borough shows up; a fight with creepy, crawly, alternate dimension things that is fought off with rapping, the other borough's and the character's family are there to help; a scary thing in a bathroom stall after which a friend is there to help, a creepy mural after which a friend is there to help and MRAs who show up and threaten to burn paintings/the building after which a friend and the burroughs show up to help. And then there's Staten Island. whose awakening is a threat of sexual assault and the person who shows up to help is... the Woman in White. For whom the boroughs show up only late into the game, after the Woman in White has worked her way in.
Now, let's be clear, Staten Island's been taught a lifetime of hate, and while she understands on one level that it's not right and her father is racist, she has also swallowed down unconscious biases. I am not going to pretend her unconcious racism is not bad. I am also not going to pretend that she is a traitor. Her violence is the most rational and normal of all of them which makes it hit close in many ways - it's not particularly fantastical, it's so everyday it digs in a bit. She has no support when it happens, except for the Woman and White. She is left alone for days and she is sheltered but she still clearly knows what's wrong within the things NYC battles, she's just sort of buried under it. If there's some attempt to allegory that she's bad because she never leaves her island and she only wants to be better and understands what's bad, just literally can't escape it - it sucks.
Also, let's talk sex. Staten Island gets threatened with assault. NYC pleasures Sao Paulo to try to thank him for getting him off the street - clearly he things he has to do this, rather than lust or want. NYC seems young, childlike, is called a black boy a couple of times and Manhattan shows up and lusts after him, a young person whose one interaction we've seen with sex and whose feelings around sex have been about payment, versus autonomy - I just found the desire for sex with someone you've never seen who probably has some shit to get over as very weird. Yes, in the end Manhattan isn't trying to pressure him but there's still clearly an inescapable knowledge that Manhattan sees you as something he wants to fuck and lusts after. Just all a bit much for me.
In general: stereotypes are so heavy they're a parody, slow, so preachy it sometimes feels like a parody, even as a member of the choir I just sort of wanted to get on with it so that I could find some magic rather than feel lectured too. At times, when the action was moving along and I wasn't having the world building told to me, I was enjoying it - maybe somewhere around the first third and the second third, but otherwise a slog to get through
aajinnah's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5