Reviews tagging 'Cannibalism'

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

9 reviews

brynalexa's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful 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? It's complicated

4.5

There’s something about NK Jemisin’s endings that make me want to go right back to page one as soon as I’m done. She also loves to end a book underground. I read that people feel the character introductions are a slog but I completely disagree- the character introductions and them finding each other IS the plot. I loved how the world building and plot were so expertly weaved into the character work. I was sad to be introduced to Queens last because I liked being in her head quite a bit.  I’ll be picking up the sequel ASAP. 
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torturedreadersdept's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny 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

5.0

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dannythestreet's review against another edition

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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

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jjstallone's review against another edition

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4.0

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martinatan's review against another edition

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

3.0

I was intrigued by the premise but the execution was not entirely satisfying. I was mainly surprised by the conclusion of this book (the first of an upcoming trilogy), but it didn’t really delight me—I thought it was mildly clever.

I could sense a lot of research and creative license went into writing this, and the concept must make it hard to really flesh out the characters, but ultimately the writing voice rubbed me the wrong way with almost all of the characterizations. Especially when
trying to speak to some very particular identities, I felt the author was not handling every characters’ background to the degree of sensitivity that I hoped for. There were many times that the description of East Asian characters, especially, fell short of what I feel is a culturally nuanced understanding of being from East Asian. That’s all I really can articulate about it for now, but ultimately there was a buildup of instances throughout the novel that gave me an overarching feeling of distrust in the author’s ability to inhabit characters of other cultures.


Also, I felt really unbalanced by the amount of “screen time” given to each character, as some did not get many POV chapters and it left me hyperfocused on why. Even if they get more focus in future installments, I wish they had all been developed to the same degrees in the first. Additionally, the ordering and pacing of how information is revealed felt really off to me, there were times where even how a scene was established rattled my immersion in the characters’ point of view.

Slight ramble ahead. On the premise itself, what I started labeling it in my head early on was
weird fanfic about New York City. I’ve lived near and visited New York my whole life, and only after reading this did I realize I don’t really need “New York fanfic” in my life. Sure it’s an homage and all, but I don’t know that I can get behind the metaphor for white supremacy and colonization being a literal extraterrestrial entity. Maybe it’s because I feel sensitive to this subject, and I had hoped it might be somewhat cathartic to see it play out in a fantasy setting, but after reading this I want to say say that it actually feels kind of disrespectful to people facing actual prejudice, displacement, and hate crimes. Like when the Enemy is vanquished, the implication of how this book ends is that this alien source of white supremacy and therefore the magnitude of injustice in the world is significantly diminished. I just can’t vibe with that after all. Or maybe this is the point, for me to get uncomfortable about how racism and gentrification are still out there. Idk, it just ended up too far removed from a productive or interesting take on society that I would have appreciated.



Anyway. Being someone from New Jersey who has lived close to New York City all my life, perhaps a contemporary fantasy story with this setting wasn’t the right book for me to pick up. Even though I’ve enjoyed the Broken earth trilogy in the past. Hard for me to say!

I can say overall this is somewhat worth reading if you want to explore the base concept of living cities a little, but because of the reasons above, I ultimately didn’t get too much pleasure or satisfaction out of the story.
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voxelbee's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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

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sarah984's review against another edition

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mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0

I just can't see what seemingly everyone else saw in this book. Bland prose (everyone’s thoughts and motivations are listed like we might otherwise miss them, like "[character] thinks dark things are evil because she sees that in the media" is essentially an actual sentence in this novel) padded with pointless bickering and boring New York in-jokes. Every character is an ethnic stereotype and they all sound so similar to one another that I kept forgetting one of them was supposed to be 70 until she brought up Stonewall again. The antagonist’s minions are like cartoon villains and they're all written in the most cringe-inducing way possible.

I did like the idea behind how the antagonist’s plan worked, and using white and light colours as something dangerous. Unfortunately, the one interesting city formation concept is dropped almost immediately after it comes up and the ending didn't make any sense with what was already established.

I feel like the author could have saved me a few hours of reading time by just typing up a Tumblr post about how much she hates Staten Island and leaving it at that.
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skudiklier's review against another edition

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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. 
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sj_54's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.25

One part 'Everyone in New York hates each other! And traffic!'
Two parts 'New York is just the best!' 
And one part 'Are you sure you noticed the racism? Let me repeat it again over an extra 10 pages just to be sure. And then apply every racial stereotype to the other characters so you're aware they're not white.'

With a couple of ageist and fatphobic comments to round it all out. 

Also the twist at the end? Absolutely predictable.
Seriously we're introduced to Veneza with about a million references to the fact she lives in Jersey which 'isn't part of New York reeeeeally, but kinda is at heart' and then she just happens to be the only non-city who hangs around?
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