In Manhattan, a young grad student gets off the train and realizes he doesn't remember who he is, where he's from, or even his own name. But he can sense the beating heart of the city, see its history, and feel its power. In the Bronx, a Lenape gallery director discovers strange graffiti scattered throughout the city, so beautiful and powerful it's as if the paint is literally calling to her. In Brooklyn, a politician and mother finds she can hear the songs of her city, pulsing to the beat of her Louboutin heels. And they're not the only ones.
New York comes alive, through six human avatars, but something in the multiverse isn't happy. Explosively creative & often funny. Shares a deep love for the city & its people. Clever use of identity politics and gentrification.
At a certain point in a city’s existence, its social construct becomes so great it bursts into life. These living cities are represented by their avatars. A citizen who embodies the spirit of the city and acts as its defender.
New York City, however, has a troubled birth. Its avatar, a homeless graffiti artist, is wounded during his awakening by a malevolent force. But unlike most cities, New York has its avatars split between its boroughs, each representing the diverse backgrounds and characteristics of their boroughs. Lacking their primary avatar for the city, they must find each other and piece together the force undermining the city.
This force is both out in the open with white Lovecraftian tentacles attacking the city and controlling the more xenophobic-minded citizens; and in the background in the form of shell companies gutting and gentrifying neighbourhoods. However, the city isn’t as united as it should …
It took me a while to get into this story but I'm glad I stuck with it. If you like stories with a lot of battles between heroes and monster villains, this is your book. While I enjoy a superhero show as much as the next person, reading fight scenes in a novel is not to my taste. As the story unfolds, the social commentary ramps up. Would be especially relevant to New Yorkers who are familiar with personalities of the city's boroughs. As an outsider, I understood enough to see where the story was headed but I'm sure it offer more to New York inhabitants. I read this book via audiobook and enjoyed the voicing and dramatization.
NK Jemisin is an incredibly good writer. This book makes me feel the injustice happening to these charters in such a strong way, that I have to take breaks. This book also celebrates black joy, and the important place various cultures have in our cities. This book feels like a victory lap, and after winning 3 straight Hugos, Jemisin continued on to show why she is one of the best writers of our time.
had a lot of promise, but lacked character development and subtlety
“The City We Became,” by N.K. Jemisin, reminds me a lot of Neil Gaiman’s works. Not necessarily in prose, but certainly in worldbuilding. The concept of Avatars of cities, the power of stories and belief, and using old myths to spin modern fantasies, all certainly do.
The characters are all very well done, with each having a very distinct personality and perspective, and by extension give an interesting view of New York according to the author - a place I have admittedly never been (drive-through doesn’t count, I think). They also bounce off each other in interesting, dramatic, sometimes charming and sometimes tragic ways. I find the dynamics fascinating when the Characters ARE the setting.
That was aided in how I read this book - the audiobook version - which was an absolutely fantastic experience. The reader was able to give each character a very distinct voice, mannerism, and accent, …
“The City We Became,” by N.K. Jemisin, reminds me a lot of Neil Gaiman’s works. Not necessarily in prose, but certainly in worldbuilding. The concept of Avatars of cities, the power of stories and belief, and using old myths to spin modern fantasies, all certainly do.
The characters are all very well done, with each having a very distinct personality and perspective, and by extension give an interesting view of New York according to the author - a place I have admittedly never been (drive-through doesn’t count, I think). They also bounce off each other in interesting, dramatic, sometimes charming and sometimes tragic ways. I find the dynamics fascinating when the Characters ARE the setting.
That was aided in how I read this book - the audiobook version - which was an absolutely fantastic experience. The reader was able to give each character a very distinct voice, mannerism, and accent, and the occasional and subtle use of music or sound effects were also perfect. Never so obvious as to take me out of the story - it didn’t suddenly turn into a radio play - but rather just enough to emphasize the effect of the scene.
The plot is relatively straightforward, especially if you’re familiar with common sci-fi/fantasy concepts like multiverses, but it lays the groundwork for a thrilling and tense game of cat and mouse that kept me hooked the whole way through.
Also the messaging about misogyny, white supremacy, and the danger (and sometimes vulnerability) of those who embrace alienation and bigotry, are all on point, if perhaps a touch on the nose. I love how it also took Lovecraftian motifs and themes and turned them around to condemn the very ideology of people like Lovecraft. I love seeing that compelling mythos appropriated for good.
There isn’t any romance in the book, but it was still great to see queer representation, as well as BIPOC representation.
All together, I simply loved the book, and I highly recommend it. I can’t wait to start up the sequel!
A poetic urban fantasy with a taste of cosmic horror that functions as (yet another) love letter to New York city. The fundamental concepts, that cities can inhabit one of their denizens who function as their avatar and defend themselves from nefarious beings from across the multiverse, lay a grand stage but the mechanics didn't make much sense to me. There is a lot of hand waving that means you just have to roll with it, and combined with the decorative language it makes for a surreal read, the sort of thing I'd normally enjoy. It feels like the sort of thing that would adapt well to animation, or at least you can see how animation may have inspired it.
However, the book also functions as an intersectional feminist tract, employing an extremely diverse cast of characters and watching them wind each other up. The big bad is the personification …
A poetic urban fantasy with a taste of cosmic horror that functions as (yet another) love letter to New York city. The fundamental concepts, that cities can inhabit one of their denizens who function as their avatar and defend themselves from nefarious beings from across the multiverse, lay a grand stage but the mechanics didn't make much sense to me. There is a lot of hand waving that means you just have to roll with it, and combined with the decorative language it makes for a surreal read, the sort of thing I'd normally enjoy. It feels like the sort of thing that would adapt well to animation, or at least you can see how animation may have inspired it.
However, the book also functions as an intersectional feminist tract, employing an extremely diverse cast of characters and watching them wind each other up. The big bad is the personification of colonialism, gentrification and white supremacy and their broad remit somewhat dilutes the metaphor. There is a moment near the middle where Aislyn, the avatar for white suburbia, is dramatically humanised and it seems like the whole book is going to gel, but it dissolves into a series of melodramatic stand offs and ends with her left as the entry point for everything bad in the multiverse.
It doesn't help that I'm pretty sick of stories about miserable people being awful to each other in New York somehow being spun as charming and witty. The entire city appears to have been in denial about the abusive relationship it has with itself for decades and at this point it's just boring.
I wanted to like this and I think the idea of it is good and courageous, but ultimately it felt a bit preachy and tedious. A few good moments where there is a glimpse of its potential, but not a patch on the Broken Earth and I doubt I'll bother with the sequel.
Promising idea; disappointing execution. The villains were cartoonish, full-on evil with no depth or nuance whatsoever; I kept hoping for a mustachio twirl, it would’ve made them more believable. Going with the Lovecraft mythos—not just inspired-by, but literal straight-out-of-his-books stuff—annoyed me; it brings attention, indirect validation even, to someone who doesn’t deserve it. And, far too many convenient little miracles: even with the handwavey “the city takes care of its own” rationalization, the improbabilities were too much for me. So were the plot inconsistencies.
Possibly fun for a resident of New York, especially someone with tribalistic attachment to one of the subdivisions (Brooklyn, Bronx, whatever). Probably a lot of insider references that they can enjoy and relate to. For the rest of us, fun light reading with interesting, likable, strong female characters and passable tension. Just don’t expect anything as rich and complex as Jemisin’s earlier work.
This story will make such a great movie one day. Clearly cinematographic writing takes the reader through a fast-paced urban adventure. The main characters, city avatars, have been transformed into boroughs of New York. In other words, the City comes alive through the lives and bodies of Manny (Manhattan), Bronca (The Bronx), Brooklyn (Brooklyn), Padmini (Queens) and the primary avatar. They have to work together to defend the city against the invasion of a foreign being aiming to halt the growth and spirit of the city, and consequently cause conflict, pain and suffering. Aislyn (Staten Island), will find herself at a crossroads and have to choose which side she's on.
New York is the main character of this book, which is a complete whilrwind tour of a city under attack, but fighting back. Special appearances by avatars Sao Paulo and Hong Kong bring even more diversity to this urban mix …
This story will make such a great movie one day. Clearly cinematographic writing takes the reader through a fast-paced urban adventure. The main characters, city avatars, have been transformed into boroughs of New York. In other words, the City comes alive through the lives and bodies of Manny (Manhattan), Bronca (The Bronx), Brooklyn (Brooklyn), Padmini (Queens) and the primary avatar. They have to work together to defend the city against the invasion of a foreign being aiming to halt the growth and spirit of the city, and consequently cause conflict, pain and suffering. Aislyn (Staten Island), will find herself at a crossroads and have to choose which side she's on.
New York is the main character of this book, which is a complete whilrwind tour of a city under attack, but fighting back. Special appearances by avatars Sao Paulo and Hong Kong bring even more diversity to this urban mix of people, cultures and space. A wonderful urban fantasy to read!
Listened/read on Libby. Exciting present-day fantasy by an author quickly becoming a favorite! I really liked the way that the author played with cognition of multiple realities at the same time so that things were there/not there. By the end she set up a very intriguing moral dilemma surrounding life and the death required to sustain it-- can't wait to see where this takes us over the rest of the trilogy. Sometimes the conversations felt a little forced or on the nose, but it feels fine amidst the context of exhilarating sequences where the boroughs tap into their embodied powers. Read another review where someone described this as an allegory for a graphic novel -- which I agree with in a positive way :-)
Also shout out to the narrator for the audiobook, Robin Miles-- really kept me interested especially with all the different character voices.
I think this is a brilliantly woven allegory to modern NYC: racism, gentrification, and over-retailing.
As well-crafted as it is, it felt like a comic book to me (graphic novel would be a better term, I suppose). Superheroes on a quest, moving through a carefully defined universe of rules that need to be laid out before every next step.
Well-made, but not my cup of tea in fiction.
Jemison does the most amazing world building. This is a world just missed out of the corner of your eye, unless you're there to protect a city. Tight, well-paced, good action, clear voices.
Oh my. This book is so good! It's such a phenomenal subversion of Lovecraft's notion of horror while also being an excellent piece of Cosmic Horror that people have come to thoughouly associate with Lovecraft. The characters are vibrant and compelling, and so delightfully diverse! They are all very different people and it matters in the story, their diversity is a reflection of the diversity that is essential to the plot. This might be a go to example for me to point people to what meaningful diversity in characters looks like.
And the worldbuilding! I love it so much! What an incredibly cool and thought provoking was to construct a fictional reality. And I'm not entirely sure that it's all that fictional. The worldbuilding is born directly out of real problems and real struggles of communities. The birth of a city both invokes and evokes ideas that I'll be contemplating …
Oh my. This book is so good! It's such a phenomenal subversion of Lovecraft's notion of horror while also being an excellent piece of Cosmic Horror that people have come to thoughouly associate with Lovecraft. The characters are vibrant and compelling, and so delightfully diverse! They are all very different people and it matters in the story, their diversity is a reflection of the diversity that is essential to the plot. This might be a go to example for me to point people to what meaningful diversity in characters looks like.
And the worldbuilding! I love it so much! What an incredibly cool and thought provoking was to construct a fictional reality. And I'm not entirely sure that it's all that fictional. The worldbuilding is born directly out of real problems and real struggles of communities. The birth of a city both invokes and evokes ideas that I'll be contemplating for awhile: What does it mean to belong to a place? What does it mean to be of it?
This was a weird, fun book.
I didn't think it was my kind of book but after an hour or two I couldn't put it down.
Unusual story, interesting universe. If I had spent more time in New York at some point in my life, I probably would have gotten more out of it, so I'm hoping that maybe one of the sequels takes place somewhere I've actually lived.
