Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

7 reviews

shoshin's review against another edition

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The ableism got to be too much for me.

The treatment of
the Staten Island avatar's panic attacks and abuse history
were bad, but I was willing to give Jemisin more of a chance because sometimes it takes more than one time showing a character to work through complicated issues. Then the fact that making buildings accessible makes them "not New York enough" 
so that the enemy can attack them
made me pause reading. I usually read a few reviews when I'm considering quitting a book. What I found out is that
the treatment of the Staten Island character gets even worse
. I'm not willing to invest more time in this series based on that, and I'm reconsidering whether I ever read other Jemisin books.
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parkersicle's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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rnbhargava's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This book is near perfect for me. Some dings for variable pacing and maybe wrapping up a bit too cleanly and vaguely abruptly. Overall, I loved this adventure steeped in what makes NYC the city it is. 
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franklola's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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laurenkimoto's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

As per usual some disjointed thoughts about this book 
  • Amazing cover: the matte city scape with the shiny tentacles and colour detailing ties in so nicely to the story *chef kiss* The person who designed the cover deserves an award
  • Chapter titles really should make a comeback 
  • We love some reluctant heroes who really just want to say to hell with saving the world just let me live my life in peace 
  • I am a fool I did not realize this was part of a series and now I’m sitting here waiting for the next book :(
  • The petty book hill I will die on is that short chapters are superior to long chapters 
  • This is different than other fantasy books partially because it’s urban fantasy but also because the first half of the book the characters don’t know what’s going on so you don’t know what’s going on. Jemisin doesn’t info dump or use a naive character at the start to explain this world but rather you learn as the characters learn which I find is a fresh take. 
  • This book has the most diverse set of characters I have ever come across and it does so without any “token” characters because their identity and diversity is tied in to who/what they are. With this comes addressing so many timely and everlasting issues and Jemisin does so without sacrificing plot, pacing or anything else. 
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grets_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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chalkletters's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I’ve heard a huge amount about N K Jemisin, so I was interested to finally read some of her writing. ‘What if cities were personified as people’ was intriguing, but didn’t give much of an idea what the plot was going to be, so I really didn’t know what to expect. 

I hadn’t realised that the city-people would have been normal people first, which was a really unexpected spin on things. I enjoyed reading about Padmini and Bronca and Brooklyn and Aislyn because they all had normal people lives, they didn’t just come into being as personification of New York’s four boroughs. Character is always the most important part of any book for me, and these characters felt alive and vibrant, even the ones who were standing in the way of what the others wanted to achieve. 

That said, the actual plot wasn’t really my cup of tea. I wasn’t expecting a multi-dimensional war, or Lovecraftian horrors, and neither is something I particularly look for in a book. I did enjoy the characters coming to work together, figuring out how to get to their goal, but the antagonist and the stakes were a little bigger and higher than I could appreciate. 

I enjoyed reading The City We Became, and it certainly made me think about things, so I’m looking forward to book club’s discussion. But I don’t know that I’ll seek out more books by N K Jemisin unless I encounter something where the premise seems more up my alley.
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