Title- The City We Became
Author- N. K. Jemisin
Pages- 437
Genre- Urban Fantasy, Science Fiction, Contemporary
Rating- 3/5
ISBN 13- 9780356512679
Review No.- 56
Synopsis-
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.
Review-
'The City We Became' is one of the most hyped and talked about sci-fi/fantasy book of 2020. It is the first installment of Great Cities series. The synopsis seemed pretty interesting, the cover design is cool too and I immediately clicked the request button on NetGalley. I really wanted to loved this book. It seriously hurts when I am not able to love some hyped book (there may be some legit reason for being hyped, right?). Did I enjoy reading it?? Why did I rate it 3/5??? Well...
The City We Became is set it New York. Sorry! It's a story about New York. Not just New York as a city, but New York as a person. And five other people who are the five boroughs of New York. New York is under attack by an evil, other-worldly force/spirit/creature/monster (still not sure what it was) referred to as 'the enemy'. Will the new born city and its five boroughs be able to hold the line against it?
The concept of people who truly represent the city and its borough being born as an avatar of the city itself on reaching maturity is a wonderful, highly potential concept. The writing is quite humorous at some point. The diverse characters from different kinds of backgrounds, BIPOC and LGBTQA (hell yes!!!). I was surprised and immensely happy to see an Indian girl, that too a Tamil girl represented in this book (high-five). Her family was totally relatable (seriously, her aunt said a proverb that MY grandma used the other day). In short, great research by the author! The other characters were pretty likeable too. The map helped a lot since I had no idea about New York's topography.
Now comes the bitter parts. The world building was very complex and I did not understand anything more than the basic concept. My brain was just too tiny to absorb all that info dump, I guess. The writing was confusing and I just didn't know wth-is-going-on at some places. It was really tedious and I just wanted to get over with the book (a week). The language had slangs that I had no idea of (my bad). And the only white mc is shown in bad light too (is it racist to portray every white person to be racist? I guess so).
In short, I am not a big fan of The City We Became. But I do recommend you to give it a try and decide for yourself. I have met lots of people who have loved it and as I previously said, I feel that hyped books are hyped for a reason.
I thank Netgalley and Little Brown Book Group UK for providing me with an advanced reader's copy. All opinions are my own.