Reviews with content warning for Gun violence - The World We Make

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The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin

17 reviews

jaan's review

adventurous lighthearted fast-paced

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

2.75

This isn’t Jemisin’s best work. I agree with a lot of other criticisms I’ve seen people level at it—the dropped plot threads, the sameness of each chapter’s narrative structure, the sometimes-colonialist mindset the author can slip into (I had to work to like Padmini. I think Jemisin got immigrant narratives all wrong.), the fact that her antagonist isn’t actually clear and is often self-contradicting, the sometimes unpolished/juvenile writing, etc.

But! Jemisin has nothing left to prove, at least for me—Broken Earth is masterful. She is a brilliant and gifted storyteller, and I’m happy she cares enough about her stories to make sure that, when push comes to shove, she tells them. At the end of the day, The World We Make goes by fast and is incredibly indulgent, and I enjoyed reading it.

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rainbowyeticorn's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark funny hopeful lighthearted 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? It's complicated

5.0

This is the third book of the series. The first is a short story, which the following two books including this one being full length novels.

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therainbowshelf's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny 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

A super fun conclusion to this epic story! I'll miss meeting all of the city avatars and watching New York fight an otherworldly entity that weaponizes hate, political unrest, and corporate stores. I feel like I wanted a little more from the ending than this whole Digimon-esque wrapup, but was not deebly disappointed.

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a_kt's review

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adventurous hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I think this book builds on a lot of what made the first book so unique and interesting. It expands on the "rules" and worldbuilding of the original while also keeping things mysterious and tense. I really liked the inclusion of other cities as characters as well, even though we only got short snippets of them.

Like many other reviewers on here I did find the ending of this book to be somewhat anticlimactic, and I really wish this series was going to be a trilogy as originally planned. However, after reading the Acknowledgements at the end I understood why Jemisin felt such burnout on this series and decided to make this end instead. I really love the premise of these books, and Jemisin's writing is top notch (as usual), I can only hope that we get a spin off or some type of sequel at some point in the future, although I will be happy to read whatever she feels like publishing.

If you read and enjoyed the first in the series, I would definitely recommend giving this one a go. If you were on the fence about the first one, you can probably skip this sequel but you would be missing out in my humble opinion.

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lilacs_book_bower's review

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challenging mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

I have to say that I didn't quite like this as much as The City We Became, but I still enjoyed it a lot. I feel like the villains got off a little too easy. And in a real world full of injustice, it would be nice to see justice served in fiction, but that is my moral code speaking. Aislyn is not likable in the first book and doesn't improve much here (which makes her an interesting character, but a bit harder to root for). This book felt lighter than the first one in content and action. My main complaint is I wanted more of the characters interacting. They are fun together! Things felt like they could have been fleshed out more. I really enjoyed seeing the other cities and the interesting revelation about Manny's family back in Chicago. It's such a fascinating conceit to have avatars for cities. If by some chance you have read this series, but not Jemisin's How Long 'Til Black Future Month?, the first story in that collection (which is excellent) is a prologue to this duology, where we see NYC being born. Well worth the read.

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pandact's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I’m sending this straight to Alex Kasman and MathFiction, because this is some quality speculative fiction! I’d say it’s four stars for literary content, leaving me fully satisfied, and five stars for my favorite audiobook production. The ambience and voice distortions gave me chills, and the narration pretty much voice acting (similar to The Original, but 100% less Audible)! It’s packed with scenes giving every beloved character a good payoff, and all the twists had satisfying, subtle hints that readers of the Broken Earth series will be familiar with. (I love seeing Padmini and Neek interact 🤩)

I liked the references to Lovecraftian lore (including the gory colors that I know from OSP), plus the witty pop culture and self-aware social justice. Most of all, the thing that this book excels at is the reason I love fiction: The Great Cities series is fantastic at giving you a new way of seeing the world. It flawlessly pulls off blending the real world with fictional battles, while also describing concepts from social justice with optimism. Thematically, it makes sense that almost every chapter is a different person as they all build a story, just like the cities of the world are built from the interaction of every person. The World We Make is well worth your time, and I’m going to spend money on it too since I promised myself I would if my favorite character made it (no spoilers)!

Similar stories: Middlegame, Wendell & Wild, Broken Earth, Lovecraft County

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thewildmageslibrary's review against another edition

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5.0

okay, wow. Didn't think this series could get any better, but yeah. I loved this so much.

Spoiler

You can't just bring up BEYONCE and then not address that again?? Or was I reading too fast and missed it?

Also, Manny's family KNEW about Cities?? AAAHHH.

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scrubsandbooks's review

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adventurous challenging 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

5.0

I am absolutely baffled to know that this book was a rush job, Jemisin deciding to turn it into a duology instead of a trilogy, because holy shit, it was GOOD. The Great Cities duology reads like a love letter to NYC and it touches my heart as someone who grew up in Queens (and is also from India just like Padmini! Does that mean I could be an avatar of Queens? I would love to think so!), but the stakes were even higher in this book than the last that I flew straight through this book on my day off. So much happens, I just couldn't put it down!

While I was reading the physical copy, I also had the audiobook and Robin Miles does such a superb job that I listened to the audiobook AND read the physical hardcover at the same time. If you're a fan of a book with special effects and background noise and even the BOSS BATTLE MUSIC during action-packed scenes, go for the audiobook, for sure.

N.K. Jemisin's writing is absolute magic. This addresses a lot of topic Real Life Situations like deportation threats from ICE, white supremacy and racism built into systems such as real estate and policing, gentrification, even family dynamics that are rough to deal with like a bigoted father and an ultimatum-setting mother. While it was rough going reading through some of it, other aspects like the dialogue, and introductions to other city avatars were a delight to read. I mean, she even gives NYC subway rats dialogue: "We caused the Black Plague, bitch, who the fuck you think you are?"

Even if it seems like the second book was rushed (I couldn't tell but others could?) I highly recommend this duology if you love: amazing narration in audiobooks, NYC, found family tropes, QUEER found family even, stories featuring amazing middle-aged women, BIPOC stories, anything that gives a middle finger to racist ass Lovecraft.

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zone_a3's review

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challenging hopeful tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Although I love Jemisin's body of work as a whole, and I enjoyed The City We Became, this book missed the mark for me. I understand and sympathize when the author's expressed difficulties in tackling this series' premise given the state of the real world at the time of writing, but I would be lying if I didn't acknowledge that it clearly negatively impacted the book.

While there were certainly elements I enjoyed, (every glimpse at other Cities was excellent), when I look back at this book and compare it to its prequel, its faults become very apparent.

Spoiler
In Book 1, there is clear, pervasive, present danger. In Book 2, any time danger starts cropping up, it is immediately resolved with no consequences.
Spoiler
In Book 1, a lot of effort is made to humanize all sides of the conflict. Jemisin makes it very clear that the villain doesn't "turn people evil", but rather people with certain (bigoted, hateful) beliefs are susceptible to evil influence. Useful idiots, if you will. If the villain disappeared in Book 1, many of the problems facing the heroes would persist. In Book 2, however, this nuance is completely gone. Useful idiots have been replaced with brainwashed zombies; and when the villain is defeated, it magically fixes all of the massive institutional problems the heroes were facing.
Spoiler
A large portion of the conflict in this book stems from mature (in many cases, literally multiple centuries old) adults deliberately failing to communicate. This is attempted to be justified, but I don't think it worked.
Spoiler
And of course there's the issue of pacing and the unavoidable plot rush of crunching a planned trilogy down into a single (significantly shorter) sequel. There just wasn't time to explore the ideas Jemisin had set up in Book 1 before Book 2 was over. It really felt like we gasped over the finish line; or maybe more accurately, we stopped short and just moved the finish line up.

I've been really harsh in the spoiler tags, so I want to pull back a bit and reiterate that the book does have good qualities; it just wasn't what I've come to look for from Jemisin as an author.

If you are largely discouraged/depressed by the state of the world, and want to have a bit of escapism to a version of reality where bad people get what's coming to them and evil is an external force which can be defeated, you'll probably have a good time with this book. If you prefer a more difficult, nuanced view of humanity and the nature of evil, with fewer clean, easy answers, you're probably better off sticking with Jemisin's other works.

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grets_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous funny hopeful inspiring 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

5.0

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