I really, really wanted to love THE CITY WE BECAME but the first few chapters are really repetitive in that each one introduces us to one character and their environment until we get through a large chunk of an ensemble cast of characters that still need to get together for the story to get moving. It’s very monotonous and hard to follow until you get a good sense of what’s going on. By the time the story gets into first gear, it may or may not have already lost your attention. For me, it was still mildly piqued, so I pushed through. Ultimately I am glad I did because once the story gets going, it’s really interesting and unique, if a little heavy handed. Still, original sci-fi is hard to come by these days and I really enjoyed the ideas at play and loved all the characters. My biggest problem here is that THE STORY WE BECAME is very clearly just half of a story and the last act feels rushed and anticlimactic. I know a sequel has been published recently but unfortunately I don’t think I enjoyed this enough to pursue