Dec 5

Dec 5 The City We Became (Great Cities, #1)

Author: N.K. Jemisin
Publisher: Orbit
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

Cover Description

Five New Yorkers must come together in order to defend their city.

Every city has a soul. Some are as ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York City? She's got five.

But every city also has a dark side. A roiling, ancient evil stirs beneath the earth, threatening to destroy the city and her five protectors unless they can come together and stop it once and for all.

TL;DR Review

The City We Became is a fast-paced, imaginative, super fun urban fantasy set in New York City. As a person who lives here, I ate it up. I can’t wait to see where the series goes.

For you if: You love New York City.

Full Review

“This is the lesson: Great cities are like any other living things, being born and maturing and wearying and dying in their turn.”

Y’all, what a FUN book. You’ll see lots of people describe it as a love letter to NYC, and as a person who lives here, I had such a good time reading it.

The premise is really imaginative: All cities, when they reach a certain age or cultural tipping point, are born into living things. To help that process complete, there is always a human who takes on the city’s life force; a living avatar. Except New York has not one, but six avatars: one for each borough, and one for the city as a whole. But NYC’s birth gets disrupted by an ancient enemy who wants to stop it from being born, and so our six characters have to find each other to fortify and protect New York so it can finish being born and live on.

What makes this book so fun is how Jemisin infused these avatars with the culture, history, and lifeblood of their boroughs. You can tell she lives here and loves it deeply. It’s also very modern and of today, almost pop culture-ish. If you've ever lived here, you’ll recognize the city instantly through her eyes. It did occasionally feel a little TOO on the nose, but I also understand that Jemisin has to bring non-New Yorkers along for the ride too.

One thing I will say is that this is a very tough look for Staten Island, and it occasionally made me feel a little uncomfortable. The avatar, a girl named Aislyn, is a sheltered and racist daughter of a very racist and misogynistic police officer. And while it’s true that Staten Island is VERY red to the rest of NYC’s blue, it felt almost dismissive of the whole borough, like it’s a lost cause or full of bad guys, which doesn’t feel like a hopeful or helpful position. That said, I do think that Jemisin did a good job of showing how and why Aisyln became who she is, and she’s definitely got room for redemption, so I’m hoping that the next book focuses on the possible unity being hinted at.

Anyway, all told I had a lot of fun with this and I think you would too!