A review by dawntin
The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

adventurous medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

This book was not for me. The message was good but heavy-handed. Each character was introduced with the traits that made them special (race, ethnicity, sexuality, occupation, etc.) and they all had superpowers, due to being the avatars of major cities. There were also pop culture references and snappy dialogue. This was cool and all, but I felt like the author tried way too hard to be quirky and inadvertently ended up playing into some stereotypes in the process of making these super-quirky diverse characters. Like, did the main Indian character really need to have
math-related
superpowers? The avatar of Hong Kong literally being named Hong Kong and his accent being described as “Chinese-inflected British English” was straight up weird. The Black characters were fine though, maybe because the author is Black herself. Pacing was weird and the book wrapped everything up in like the last 20 pages. It felt like there was so much build-up before they saved the day, and when they did, I wasn’t even sure what was happening.
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