harpoonholly's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I'll also get the sequel because NK Jemisin is an amazing writer. I'm fascinated in the personification of concepts and to personify cities is to maximize adds greater complexity because of course it has to. I also like how she goes about acknowledging Lovecraft's literary contributions (northeastern U.S. sublime, dread, and monsters) and shining a scalding light over his overt bigotry that was startling even for his time.
10/10, would recommend, especially the audiobook.
Graphic: Xenophobia, Racial slurs, Classism, Colonisation, Confinement, Homophobia, Racism, and Body horror
Moderate: Misogyny, Police brutality, and Panic attacks/disorders
Minor: Gaslighting, Domestic abuse, Ableism, Addiction, and Alcoholism
dannythestreet's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Misogyny, Police brutality, Racism, Sexism, Transphobia, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Violence
Moderate: Death of parent, Dementia, Homophobia, Classism, Colonisation, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, and Grief
Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Antisemitism, Cannibalism, Cancer, Car accident, and Kidnapping
martinatan's review against another edition
- 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 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
Spoiler
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
Spoiler
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.
Graphic: Body horror, Emotional abuse, Racism, and Sexual harassment
Moderate: Toxic relationship, Ableism, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Colonisation, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Racial slurs, and Xenophobia
Minor: Alcoholism, Cancer, Child abuse, Confinement, Addiction, Miscarriage, Police brutality, Transphobia, War, Cursing, Cultural appropriation, Drug abuse, Abortion, Alcohol, and Cannibalism
boneloose's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
The Good:
The action scenes as I said were so incredibly well-written! I've never had an easier time playing a movie in my head of what's going on while I read. A lot of the action-based scenes also read almost like fleshed out stage directions at times (in a good way). I think a screen adaptation of this would be incredibly fun to watch and not too difficult to accurately make.
The Bad:
The prose in non-action scenes was written in a way that was so personally grating I almost DNF-ed the book. Rather than letting atmosphere and tension build by trusting the reader to understand the shown character reactions and through writing choices, a lot of it was extremely dampened by a very heavy-handed "pointing out" of what the reader was supposed to glean.
A non-spoiler-y excerpt to illustrate what I mean:
"The white things came off of that woman when I got rid of the others," Brooklyn says. She's hiding it well, but her confident facade has slipped a little at the sight of the dog. The dog makes this something insidious, and ominous.
Also, while I loved most of the action scenes, the climax disappointed me a lot. It was ramping up so much and so intensely over 100 pages or so only for the actual climactic battle to wrap up in about a page and a half. Also, the particular thing that the characters are figuring out how to do for pretty much the entire novel literally happens off screen! We flash forward in the last chapter and it's happened, but I don't understand why there would be so much intense focus on making it happen to not even depict it directly. Also, the ending was less concrete than I expected it to me, but that's on me for not realizing this was the first book in a series rather than a standalone. Even so, this type of ending felt almost worst than a cliffhanger. The tension was ramping up so much that I read the most tense 80 or so pages in that frantically page-turning way only for it to just... fizzle out with no real gratifying Final Battle. The complete 180 from "incredibly high stakes rising action" to "flash forward 3 weeks where everything was fine" with only a page or two in between of the characters Fully Fighting was really jarring and made the ending pretty unsatisfying in a way that I don't think reading the sequel would resolve.
Also, I really wasn't a fan of the at times almost out of nowhere graphic descriptions of genitalia that happened two or three different times throughout the book. I also don't think the attempted rape needed to be nearly as graphic as it was (chapter where the staten island avatar goes out to her pool/backyard and interacts with the person sleeping on the lounge chair; around page 270 in the US hardback edition). I can see how having it as an event informed the actions of the character later in the book, but definitely feel that how overtly it was described didn't lend much more than shock value to the plot.
All in all, the concept was incredibly intriguing but the overall execution left a lot to be desired for me. I think it would work really well as a movie with how vivid the imagery in the action scenes were, but I don't think it worked as well as a novel. That type of tapering off at the end is something I'm more forgiving of when there's a roughly 2 hour screen time to keep to but is a lot more frustrating when the author could have easily added another 20 or 50 or even 100 pages to flesh it out more thoroughly. Definitely won't reread it and I don't think I'll continue with the series, but I might watch a screen adaptation depending on what scenes make the final cut.
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Xenophobia, Sexual content, and Sexual harassment
Moderate: Homophobia, Antisemitism, and Sexism
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Ableism, Addiction, and Transphobia
laurenkimoto's review against another edition
- 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
4.25
- Amazing cover: the matte city scape with the shiny tentacles and colour detailing ties in so nicely to the story *chef kiss* The person who designed the cover deserves an award
- Chapter titles really should make a comeback
- We love some reluctant heroes who really just want to say to hell with saving the world just let me live my life in peace
- I am a fool I did not realize this was part of a series and now I’m sitting here waiting for the next book :(
- The petty book hill I will die on is that short chapters are superior to long chapters
- This is different than other fantasy books partially because it’s urban fantasy but also because the first half of the book the characters don’t know what’s going on so you don’t know what’s going on. Jemisin doesn’t info dump or use a naive character at the start to explain this world but rather you learn as the characters learn which I find is a fresh take.
- This book has the most diverse set of characters I have ever come across and it does so without any “token” characters because their identity and diversity is tied in to who/what they are. With this comes addressing so many timely and everlasting issues and Jemisin does so without sacrificing plot, pacing or anything else.
Moderate: Cursing, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Colonisation, Cultural appropriation, Racism, Police brutality, Gaslighting, Abortion, Body shaming, Addiction, Alcohol, Antisemitism, Homophobia, Islamophobia, Lesbophobia, Racial slurs, Rape, Transphobia, Bullying, Drug use, Religious bigotry, Biphobia, Classism, and Violence
skudiklier's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Racism, Violence, Xenophobia, War, Cursing, and Death
Moderate: Abortion, Addiction, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Cannibalism, Hate crime, Religious bigotry, Racial slurs, Police brutality, Misogyny, Islamophobia, Homophobia, and Grief
Minor: Sexual content, Ableism, Cancer, Car accident, Colonisation, Kidnapping, Gun violence, and Genocide
akblair's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Graphic: Cursing, Hate crime, Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism, Violence, Xenophobia, and Racial slurs
Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Religious bigotry
Minor: Colonisation, Ableism, Addiction, Antisemitism, Cultural appropriation, Genocide, and Grief
This is essentially a study of all the different cultures that make up NYC- for better or worse- and it doesn’t shy away from the ugly parts.aardwyrm's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Racial slurs, Emotional abuse, and Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Violence, Body horror, and Sexual assault
Minor: Ableism, Abortion, Addiction, Alcoholism, Antisemitism, Sexism, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Islamophobia, and Homophobia
keen's review against another edition
- 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? Yes
2.5
As for negatives: sometimes this book got a little too preachy. I will say, I think this may be because the characters of the books are more or less personified concepts, but I don't think that entirely fixes my issue. The issue being that it feels like each character has to preach to the audience about what is good or bad. How calling a woman a "bitch" is sexist, how cutting off a woman is sexist, that racism is bad, that cops are scary, etc. I'm a black trans-masc person and will always appreciate representation, but when the only transgender man in the book is brought in for a few pages, gives some speech about the transphobia he's faced (and later has a small panic that someone found out he's trans), it gets tiring. Sometimes I just want to read a book about diverse characters without needing to be reminded that the world at large hates you.
Secondly, which I can't go into as much detail with, it feels like character development wasn't that focused on in the book. The one who got the most development in my opinion was Staten Island, and unless the sequels expand more on her, she got done the dirtiest. This isn't helped by how sudden the ending is. Everything moves so fast. Conflict sky-rockets, we're thrown into the middle of it, a few pages later, it's over and everything is happy and nice. I suspect this is so the drama the next book brings hits hard, but currently? It's just unsatisfying. I believe a book in a series, or at least the first book of a series, should be strong on its own. It's not fun to read a story, get invested, then be thrown into a brick wall until the author's finishing painting the door, leading into the next story. At least slow me down a little?
Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Racism, Toxic relationship, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Grief, Police brutality, Sexism, Sexual violence, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Abortion and Addiction
malloryfitz's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Moderate: Abortion, Xenophobia, Violence, Racism, Panic attacks/disorders, Homophobia, Hate crime, Body horror, Cursing, Domestic abuse, and Emotional abuse
Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Sexual assault, Police brutality, Gun violence, Drug use, and Body shaming