A review by fruitcd
The City in Glass by Nghi Vo

Vo says in the author's note that this was her pandemic book, and I think you can tell. It's quite self-indulgent and semi-profound in the way it says a lot about cities and people that live in them but not really anything new or different. Also, despite this book being about Vitrine rebuilding her city, it felt like we skipped over a lot of the actual rebuilding-- it was just destroyed and then she mourned and then it was back. And for me, the appeal of reading a story about a demon is seeing them straddle that line between good and evil and Vitrine is too straightforwardly good and kind. The narrative is also always firmly on Vitrine's side and feels like it's saying in the end that her method of love (ownership) is a good thing... which idk if I really agree with. I would have liked to see a more nuanced view of angels and demons as opposed to just flipping them so that angels are bad and demons are good which is what it feels like Vo does here.

That being said, I still really enjoyed this. Vo's prose is so excellent as always and perfectly straddles that line for me of being meaningful and beautiful without being pretentious. I also thought it had great worldbuilding despite my wishing the angel/demon thing was more nuanced. Vo remains a new favorite author!!