3.5 rounded up.

Robin Miles gives an amazing performance, having to cover so many accents, NYC or otherwise. Extra kudos to her.

The tale is a little too heavy on the allegory, and I still cannot get into N.K. Jemisin’s action sequences (same for Broken Earth…) but I really did like the anti-Lovecraft stuff, and she has a lot of excellent lines. I have only visited NY, and don’t know it well, but all the Boroughs were recognizable to me (if only through my own stereotypes due to American media). I couldn’t really come to like many of the characters (even though I thought they were really well fleshed out). They are a product of their city I suppose, and have to play to the stereotypes for the story to work out. Soooo many F-bombs! People revere New York in the same way that other people revere Sparta. Reading various histories and accounts it seems like such a brutal place, where survival is paramount — not particularly civilized. Despite that I enjoyed the tour. Surely I missed some of the fine detail, but NK Jemisin’s love for the city definitely came though. This is a protest novel exactly for our times. I don’t know if it will be a classic, but it will certainly serve as a useful snapshot of These Days.