Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It could be a little corny. But if you're a New Yorker there are tidbits that make it funny and not to hard of a read if you can let yourself get lost in the writing style.
adventurous
challenging
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
hopeful
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Pretty fun, good response to Lovecraft, and the answer to the question "what if the genre urban fantasy was taken literally?"
It could be a bit too cartoony at times, but I guess that comes along with the premise.
I really did not think Hong Kong's characterization was accurate and leaned on some troubling tropes about Asians. Having him born in the Opium War rather than the 1960s-1970s also didn't feel right.
I liked this one significantly more than the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, which was really not my thing. It was nice having that connection to the real world, which I think Jemisin weaves well with her fantasy world. I'm also definitely here for New Urbanism, only could have made me happier if there was more about affordable housing and mass transit.
About the politics: Honestly if you tell people "Lovecraft is great, just ignore the race stuff" but you think this book's politics are a deal-breaker, I think you gotta ask yourself some questions.
It could be a bit too cartoony at times, but I guess that comes along with the premise.
I really did not think Hong Kong's characterization was accurate and leaned on some troubling tropes about Asians. Having him born in the Opium War rather than the 1960s-1970s also didn't feel right.
I liked this one significantly more than the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, which was really not my thing. It was nice having that connection to the real world, which I think Jemisin weaves well with her fantasy world. I'm also definitely here for New Urbanism, only could have made me happier if there was more about affordable housing and mass transit.
About the politics: Honestly if you tell people "Lovecraft is great, just ignore the race stuff" but you think this book's politics are a deal-breaker, I think you gotta ask yourself some questions.
After absolutely loving the Broken Earth trilogy, and being a urban planner by training, I expected to love this book. Instead, I found it corny, confusing, shallow, and devoid of character development. I write this review at page 300 after continuing to force myself through the book and finally becoming incensed that I was spending reading time on this book rather than other books I’m excited about. The characters: never well developed, largely mouth pieces for a mostly one-dimensional identity politics devoid of nuance/context, seeming to play more of an aesthetic role than rhetorical or discursive role even in their political content. The setting: for a book about the city, it never feels alive and the set pieces are mostly uninspiring and buttressed on mostly lame references to high level NYC things (brownstones! Names of streets! Names of neighborhoods!). The plot: mostly nonsensical, hard to follow, with explication/exposition happening with some of the worst pacing I’ve read.
I give it two stars simply for its originality and premise. I think this could’ve been a LOT better. I’m sad this book didn’t land with me like I did for so many others, I was ready to love it.
I give it two stars simply for its originality and premise. I think this could’ve been a LOT better. I’m sad this book didn’t land with me like I did for so many others, I was ready to love it.
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
tense
fast-paced
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
adventurous
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This was a book I read on a whim because I happened to see it on the library's recommendation display. And as someone who'd recently read the Broken Earth trilogy, this book gave me a bit of whiplash.
Does it still have moments of darkness and interesting fantasy world-building. Sure? Is it as unapologetically bleak and unsentimental as Broken Earth? No. Absolutely not. This book is damn near whimsical, which is a side of Jemisin I had not see before.
But it's an interesting approach to urban fantasy, which usually involves a quippy wizard detective or something similar. In this book we're dealing with cities that gain a sort of sentience and go through a rebirth where they pick an avatar, or in this case, avatars, to represent the new entity. Since New York is so defined by its boroughs, they get 5 in addition to the standard representative.
It feels fresh, fairly fast-paced, and the characters have enough nuance to not feel like cheap archetypes for the region they represent. Which goes along way towards basically selling us on Might Morphin Power Boroughs. They are effectively trying to unite to form a zord to defeat a gentrifying, white eldritch creation.
I'd probably have scored this higher if it weren't for the ending. As it starts closing in, and the pages run out, I looked at the state everyone was in and thought, this doesn't seem like it's going to have enough time to wrap up in a fully satisfactory way. And it's not an awful conclusion, but it feels like Jemisin was planning a series but changed her mind and just kind of pinched it off once it hit book length.
Still worth a read if you're a Jemisin fan, but definitely an oddity in her work overall.
Does it still have moments of darkness and interesting fantasy world-building. Sure? Is it as unapologetically bleak and unsentimental as Broken Earth? No. Absolutely not. This book is damn near whimsical, which is a side of Jemisin I had not see before.
But it's an interesting approach to urban fantasy, which usually involves a quippy wizard detective or something similar. In this book we're dealing with cities that gain a sort of sentience and go through a rebirth where they pick an avatar, or in this case, avatars, to represent the new entity. Since New York is so defined by its boroughs, they get 5 in addition to the standard representative.
It feels fresh, fairly fast-paced, and the characters have enough nuance to not feel like cheap archetypes for the region they represent. Which goes along way towards basically selling us on Might Morphin Power Boroughs. They are effectively trying to unite to form a zord to defeat a gentrifying, white eldritch creation.
I'd probably have scored this higher if it weren't for the ending. As it starts closing in, and the pages run out, I looked at the state everyone was in and thought, this doesn't seem like it's going to have enough time to wrap up in a fully satisfactory way. And it's not an awful conclusion, but it feels like Jemisin was planning a series but changed her mind and just kind of pinched it off once it hit book length.
Still worth a read if you're a Jemisin fan, but definitely an oddity in her work overall.
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
a love letter to new york