Reviews with content warning for Racial slurs - The City We Became

**I was provided with an ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

CW: racism, racial slurs, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, sexual assault, rape threats, violence, body horror, gore, police brutality, religious bigotry, emotional abuse, doxxing, hate crime, abortion, addiction/alcoholism, attempted drowning

My first N. K. Jemisin book and I can only really describe it as wonderfully whacky.

The City We Became is more or less a story about the 5 boroughs of New York being personified to fight off an eldritch being that is hellbent on destroying the city. How cool of a concept is that?!
It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea as it is a little strange and slow going and took me a lot longer to get through that I expected but I did enjoy it.

Jemisin’s writing is absolutely fantastic. The atmosphere created immerses you right in, from the creeping elements of Eldritch/Lovecraftian horror to the rich descriptions of the life, diverse cultures and stereotypes of New York that meticulously shape both the setting and the characters that embody it. One downside though is that as someone who has never seen or experienced the city in person, I did feel like I couldn’t fully appreciate every aspect of the book.

The storyline gave me major comic book vibes – The Wicked and the Divine or Watchmen were some that came to my mind - with how it focuses on a bunch of individuals being reluctantly bestowed powers and coming together to save a city. So although the written novel form worked well to vividly portray all of this in lieu of a comic strip, I can’t help but think it could have worked even better in graphic novel form – it would have particularly helped with the pacing.

The ending was also quite abrupt and hence gave the overall feeling of a prequel novel setting up a bigger story. All that aside however, it was still an impressive work of fiction as well as an immense homage to the city of New York and I can definitely see why Jemisin is such a big name in modern sci-fi and fantasy. I look forward to the sequel and picking up her other work.
Final Rating – 4/5 Stars

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incunabula's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious tense 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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meganpbennett's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense 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

5.0

The City We Became is magical realism at its finest. One day, New York City is born. Born as a living City, with a living avatar and 5 sub-avatars. But as it's being born, something straight out of Lovecraft attacks it, trying to kill it. The avatar fights it off, and collapses, just as the sub-avatars awaken. And it gets better and more confusing from there.

The City We Became doesn't have the exposition or information dump that a lot of magical realism books have. The reader learns what is happening as the characters learn. I'm very interested to see where she goes with the trilogy, given what happens during the climatic scenes.

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akblair's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

There are aspects of this I really love but overall I feel like it tries to do too much- worth a read if you love NYC, though. Loses some points from me for sound effects and music in the audiobook- but if you’re in to that I suppose it’s well done.

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ronan_lesh's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny 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? Yes

4.5

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innerweststreetlibrarian's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny hopeful mysterious tense 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

5.0

Such an excellent book, I’m sad it’s over but very happy to see the author has plans for two more in the series! The quality of the writing is excellent, the characters interesting and well developed, the story was unpredictable enough to keep me interested.
I really enjoyed the magical realism and it feels like a beautiful love letter to New York. So excellent!

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