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A review by vaenadal
The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
4.0
I liked this but didn't love it, certainly not as much as I hoped. I vacillated between 3 and 4 stars, but the writing was just too good to round down.
Let's start with what with worked, because the good parts were really good. As a start, the concept of great cities having incarnate souls is awesome. And as someone who grew up in NYC, I feel like Jemisin really nails the personalities of all the boroughs and NYC generally (even Staten Island, *mostly*, which is an achievement). On the one hand it was cool to see this concept applied to a city I know, but it would also be cool to read about other cities in this way. Also, I'm going to link Tochi Onyebuchi's review on Tor.com here, because his analysis felt spot on.
Then there were the other parts that annoyed me. The pace was slow for the first 1/2-2/3 of the book and I had some trouble getting into it. Some parts felt a little too episodic for the overarching plot. And some of the metaphors felt heavy-handed. As the book got closer to the climax, things picked up, but then the ending really pissed me off. Or more accurately, struck a raw nerve, because I don't think Jemisin was really wrong, per se. Maybe there will be a redemption arc in the rest of the trilogy, but heavy sigh about the ending of this one.
Let's start with what with worked, because the good parts were really good. As a start, the concept of great cities having incarnate souls is awesome. And as someone who grew up in NYC, I feel like Jemisin really nails the personalities of all the boroughs and NYC generally (even Staten Island, *mostly*, which is an achievement). On the one hand it was cool to see this concept applied to a city I know, but it would also be cool to read about other cities in this way. Also, I'm going to link Tochi Onyebuchi's review on Tor.com here, because his analysis felt spot on.
Then there were the other parts that annoyed me. The pace was slow for the first 1/2-2/3 of the book and I had some trouble getting into it. Some parts felt a little too episodic for the overarching plot. And some of the metaphors felt heavy-handed. As the book got closer to the climax, things picked up, but then the ending really pissed me off. Or more accurately, struck a raw nerve, because I don't think Jemisin was really wrong, per se.