Ok, this is a hot take, and I need you to hear me out, but this book would’ve been better as a tv show or movie. I know, a borderline blasphemous opinion, but I just think this would’ve worked better as a visual medium - still a good book but not my favourite of Jemisin’s works.

This book follows five New Yorkers as they transform into human manifestations of the boroughs of New York. The city of New York is being born - like thousands of cities before it- but something is different this time, and it’s not just the five avatars to the average city’s one. The Enemy is more powerful, the people are more problematic, and the rag-tag group of New Yorkers need to work together, despite their biases against one another, etc. Now, I love a rag-tag group forced together because of a common goal, this goal was just really confusing, and none of the group members were particularly loveable.

Everything was a bit too on the nose for me, and I found a typo. Please, put your books through several rounds of editing before publishing them without a necessary quotation mark. I will admit that one typo does not make a book drop several stars, but it made me wonder how thoroughly this book was vetted before publishing.

Jemisin is a great writer, but this book didn’t quite hit the spot for me. Maybe that’s because I’m from New Zealand and have literally no connections to New York City (let alone any influential city). Maybe, the world just wasn’t built out enough for me. A lot of the lore was confusing and wishy-washy, and I think Jemisin tried to add that to the story (having the characters not know wanting alongside the readers). However, even once a character got info dumped on, I still struggled to understand some of the history and lore. It’s a wonderful idea and has the potential to be a great world, but I think it just needed some refining.

Also, not a fan of the Uncensored Use of Slurs that Jemisin cannot reclaim (ch*nk).

((As an aside, maybe the bar for Magical Avatars of New York City has just been placed really high due to my love of The Unsleeping City, everyone go watch that.))

I am not a huge fan of fantasy—my favorite genres are contemporary fiction, literary fiction, and romance—but I decided to challenge myself and try something new. This book appealed to me because the fantasy is rooted in the real world. I live in NYC  and love it here, so I figured this would pull me in. I was right—the concept did pull me in and I didn’t hate the fantasy elements! This book also has excellent representation on every single front. I am very glad this book exists  and think it sets a really high standard that other authors need to strive to meet. 

HOWEVER, I was not a fan of the pacing and structure of this book. Maybe this is because fantasy novels need more exposition and tend to be long; I’m not sure. The first 200 pages felt like almost entirely exposition to me and I was really wondering where the story was headed. By the time the action started to rise, I didn’t care enough about what was happening and felt like I had to slog through the book. 

I was on board with most of the suspension of disbelief and convenience that some of the fantastical elements required, but sometimes it seemed like a bit of a cop-out to make the story move along. There were also loose threads that didn’t get tied up (I’m assuming they’ll be addressed in book #2). 

i really wanted to like this book. i enjoyed the short story that eventualy became the prologue. and i loved the 'broken earth', even with its flaws. and 'how long till black future month' is one of my favourite short story collections by a single author. 'the city we became' is actually one of the only books –that isnt part of an established series– which i was anticipating for months and got right on release. and then i read it in under a week. you would think that means i liked it, but i know i'm not gonna be re-reading it (normally i always read books i like atleast three times). and i probably wont be reading the next books in the series. 
 
it has some pacing issues, it's both to slow and too fast. 'the city unborn' felt like a wholly self-contained story and was a satisfying read. and it had all the exposition needed to carry this premise for a whole series. this book says no actually it's just a prologue. and then the whole book feels like a prologue and exposition dump.  it would have left me waiting for more, if the book was better.
 
however my main gripe is, that for a story that is so heavily about who makes up nyc (and its culture) and, very obviously cares about representation, it is missing jews and trans women. having only one minor jewish character - who is only there to be antisemiticly harrassed and threatened -and no trans femmes is just really fucking disappointing. and inaccurate. Jemisin's New York doesn't need an alien enemy (more on that in a minute), to be a distopia. It already is. A city that is so heavily influenced by jewish people and jewish culture can't be so devoid of jews in it's representatives, without some sort of antisemitic catastrophe happening before the events of the book. similiarly for trans women: all my friends who have lived in, or visited nyc, tell me how different it is compared to the other places they have been. we actually have community there. so much important trans history has happened there. but nyc in this book doesn't have any trans character, besides one british guy who just moved there. to me that kinda implies some really, really bad shit must have happened to make one of the most hypervisible groups of people – who shape so much of what new york is and means to people – completly absent from this narrative.
 
the next main problem i have is: i don't like the whole white tendrils/the enemy makes you more violent and racist thing. it just doesn't work as an explanation for how people will act as agents of white surpremacy, seemingly on command. taking away their agency by making them influenced by a lovecraftian evil makes it appear as if they wouldn't act exactly the same without it. which, you know, is bad.
 
i am disappointed because i love genius loci. the world jemisin is building is really awesome. the concepts and ideas are so strong (and cool), but the execution is lacking. one of the reasons i am writing this review, is because over 2 years after reading this book once, i still think about it. i wonder what berlin looks like in it's universe and I have almost written an unhinged fanfic about it before. but everytime i think about this i also remember how disappointing the actual novel was. and until writing this, i forgot it was supposed to be a series, even though it only exists to set up the "great citys series", or whatever.

I'll give it 3 Stars, one for the worldbuilding, one for Bronca and Veneza – who might make me pick up the next books after all – and one for the handful of memorable scenes.
 
ps: jemisin is still bad at writing trans people. and it's so weird. cos her trans characters feel like real people – and i actually really love Tonkee from broken earth, one of the girls of all time – but then immediatly jemisin uses some tired old trope. it's disappointing.
 
pps: also i really dislike the thing the primary and manny have? are gonna have? yeah. it feels forced and the power dynamics and selfcesty vibe are a big yikes. 

As per usual some disjointed thoughts about this book 

It's been a while since I've read a fantasy book that felt so unique and creative and imaginative—but that's exactly what this book was. The world that the author has created here looks a lot like our world, but expanded, and I loved it.

Our characters are introduced to us slowly and without much explanation; we figure out what's happening to them at the same time they do. So there's a fair amount of confusion at the beginning but things start to become clear and we do know more than the characters in that we know they are the embodiment of each of the boroughs—but that's about all we know at first. I loved all of the word play happening in this book—from the character names to the chapter titles, it was making me smile the whole time.

The plot was also intriguing. From the prologue, it moves at a steady pace, and an imminent threat and danger is clear. The ending doesn't end on a cliffhanger but things are definitely not resolved, and I am very anxious for book two!

This book is very New York and if you have any love for the city, you'll enjoy reading it. If you've lived in NYC at all, you'll recognize a lot more references in this book than I probably did. I can't wait to see where this story goes, because honestly the things you could do with the concept of cities as people...I just love a unique fantasy story!

I listened to the audiobook and the voice actor is doing an amazing job. It's an interesting concept, I found the book quite tense and was thrilled to see what happens next. May have enjoyed it more if I weren't an European and got all the little things I'm sure New Yorkers know but I had to just believe in.
Edit:
It's 4 am and I am thinking about the book again so I will upgrade the rating I guess.