Reviews tagging 'Grief'

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

7 reviews

rnbhargava's review against another edition

Go to review page

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. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

dannythestreet's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

4.75


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

skudiklier's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional reflective 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

4.5

By the end of this book I really enjoyed it! For a while there it felt a little too slow and repetitive, and like I just didn't appreciate it enough because I don't know NYC at all. But it was definitely interesting and engaging overall and I'm glad I read it. I love the idea here. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

akblair's review against another edition

Go to review page

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.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

therainbowshelf's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful 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 avatars of New York and its boroughs find themselves awakened all at once. Yesterday, they weren't New York, just New Yorkers, and today they're facing an uncertain future, racism, gentrification, and an interdimensional being that wants them dead, all while figuring out how to be a city filled with millions of people. I absolutely loved this book, and it quickly slid onto my favorites list. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

keen's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional informative mysterious reflective 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

2.5

Overall, I enjoyed the book. The concept of concepts being personified is something I'll always love and feel should be explored more often. This book was an adventure from the start to finish, and even made me feel for characters who you're supposed to dislike.

As for negatives: sometimes this book got a little too preachy. I will say, I think this may be because the characters of the books are more or less personified concepts, but I don't think that entirely fixes my issue. The issue being that it feels like each character has to preach to the audience about what is good or bad. How calling a woman a "bitch" is sexist, how cutting off a woman is sexist, that racism is bad, that cops are scary, etc. I'm a black trans-masc person and will always appreciate representation, but when the only transgender man in the book is brought in for a few pages, gives some speech about the transphobia he's faced (and later has a small panic that someone found out he's trans), it gets tiring. Sometimes I just want to read a book about diverse characters without needing to be reminded that the world at large hates you.

Secondly, which I can't go into as much detail with, it feels like character development wasn't that focused on in the book. The one who got the most development in my opinion was Staten Island, and unless the sequels expand more on her, she got done the dirtiest. This isn't helped by how sudden the ending is. Everything moves so fast. Conflict sky-rockets, we're thrown into the middle of it, a few pages later, it's over and everything is happy and nice. I suspect this is so the drama the next book brings hits hard, but currently? It's just unsatisfying. I believe a book in a series, or at least the first book of a series, should be strong on its own. It's not fun to read a story, get invested, then be thrown into a brick wall until the author's finishing painting the door, leading into the next story. At least slow me down a little?

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

kenchingfox's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful tense slow-paced
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5


Expand filter menu Content Warnings