A review by catlion27
The City in Glass by Nghi Vo

slow-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

3.0

I've really enjoyed Nghi Vo's work in the past, but I just didn't click with the one. The main redeeming quality is the prose, which has the beauty you'd expect from Nghi Vo. Otherwise, I had a hard time getting into the book. I didn’t feel super connected to the characters or the world (though this had improved slightly by the end), and the central relationship bothered me.

Vitrin just uses the angel and is cruel the whole time. By the end she says she loves him, but it's possessive and the relationship never becomes one of equals. The angel (who never gets named, by the way) has no agency. He is always asking her for permission to do things, even at the climax where he saves Azrael. Her taking his wings felt particularly cruel, especially without any evolution to that plot. If she'd given him back his wings so that he could save the city and then he chose to stay even though he could then physically leave, that would have felt more satisfying. In the end, the angel is just another object of Vitrin's affection. The whole treatment of the angel was dehumanizing, and as someone else pointed out to me, if the characters were genderswapped there would be rioting about how the angel is treated. Dehumanization of men by women isn't somehow better because it doesn't happen as often as the reverse. On the whole, I was disappointed at the lack of expansion or deeper understanding of their relationship throughout the book.