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A review by lauraborkpower
The Walled City by Ryan Graudin
3.0
Even though this book didn't blow me away, it's a pleasure to read this kind of YA novel--it's a realistic and serious story that sets themes of family, love, and human trafficking against a backdrop of a fictionalized version of the Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong (which was demolished in the early '90s). Two of the three main characters are girls, and there's not a vampire fang, dragon wing, or magic potion in sight, which is so refreshing.
The characters are interesting and fairly well developed. The plot is quick moving and the action is violent. I'd have liked more descriptive details about the city itself at the very start of the story. There was some, but I wanted even more to set the scene. I wanted to get the grit, the smells, the damp of the city surrounding me from the get-go.
Graudin's author's note about what she took from Kowloon's history and what she fictionalized was interesting, though I'd preferred to have it at the beginning instead of the end of the book. And if I had to do it over, I'd have read a hard copy instead of listening to the audiobook. The book has three narrators--one for each of the three main first-person characters (a well chosen and well executed narrative choice)--and while each did his/her own parts well, they each occasionally had to do the dialogue for other characters, and this was frequently awkward.
The characters are interesting and fairly well developed. The plot is quick moving and the action is violent. I'd have liked more descriptive details about the city itself at the very start of the story. There was some, but I wanted even more to set the scene. I wanted to get the grit, the smells, the damp of the city surrounding me from the get-go.
Graudin's author's note about what she took from Kowloon's history and what she fictionalized was interesting, though I'd preferred to have it at the beginning instead of the end of the book. And if I had to do it over, I'd have read a hard copy instead of listening to the audiobook. The book has three narrators--one for each of the three main first-person characters (a well chosen and well executed narrative choice)--and while each did his/her own parts well, they each occasionally had to do the dialogue for other characters, and this was frequently awkward.