Book Review: The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

N.K. Jemisin's The City We Became is the first book in her Great Cities series. This book follows the five people who turn into the personifications of the different boroughs of New York, and another person who is just New York as a whole.

At the beginning of the story, they're all in very different stages of their lives, but things slowly change as they realize that they have become the avatar of the borough that they're from (or the entire city, in the case of the avatar of New York City). And this is not the easiest revelation to take in, especially considering the many other things going on in their lives. However, they can't afford to be reluctant, as they find out that an ancient and evil enemy is in the process of infiltrating the city, threatening not just their lives, but also the safety of all their loved ones and everyone else who live in the city.

And so, with that out of the way, they have to set their many differences aside and somehow find a way to work together despite their clashing personalities, if they fail to do that, who knows what major disaster will strike New York City?

Before getting into all the good stuff in the book (and there are a lot of them, trust me), I'd like to delve into some of the things that made this book into something less than perfect.

First off, the fact that there are parts of this book that simply weren't clear enough, particularly regarding the enemy and why she's doing what she's doing. While the protagonists are all well-rounded and compellingly written, the enemy pales in comparison (pun not intended) in that regard.

We got to know a tiny bit about the motivations for her action, and what exactly she's doing, but these explanations all felt very rushed. As a result, the mechanics of what's going on in the plot can be a bit hazy during some of the important moments, and the villain of the story seemed cartoonishly one dimensional while the protagonists felt like real people.

Maybe this is an attempt to create some sort of a cosmic horror villain with purposes beyond human understanding, but if that's the case, it just fell flat, as the villain felt like she was in the awkward middle ground between human and Lovecraftian.

Similarly, there are some side characters from the protagonists' individual stories that were interesting, but they only showed up once or twice, so it feels like they're just missed opportunities. Only one of these side characters became interesting and developed by the end of the story.

You could argue that this is just the result of the book already containing so many characters and ideas, but I think this book would've been even better with an additional 50-60 pages to explore all of those things and side characters more, since the book's pacing never dragged anyway.

The main thing here is the main characters themselves. All five (the avatar of New York only got little pagetime compared to the boroughs, so he doesn't count in this) of them are three dimensional characters with their own flaws (and they have A LOT of flaws, so no Mary Sues here). And they're all incredibly distinct and diverse, in a way that seem to reflect the unique personalities of their own boroughs, so much so that some might think that it borders on stereotypical.

Does this mean that you have to be from NYC in order to enjoy this novel? Not really. Yes, having lived there would probably enhance your experience with the book, but if you're just someone from a big city (any of them), you might appreciate how this book portrayed different parts of a big city so differently, and it went rather deep into investigating why that's the case.

And that's where the book became really political, which is nothing new, if you're already familiar with Jemisin's writing, but even if you already read some of her other books, this one went beyond them. Jemisin really didn't hold anything back in that aspect, and so sometimes the book can feel a tiny bit preachy, but never so much that it became annoying. It's just one of those books with a lot to say, and for the most part, it managed to deliver those messages well.

And finally there's the writing itself. Sometimes the prose here can feel like it's trying a bit too hard to be quirky, but most of the time, I think it manages to just be endlessly readable without being irritating. There are some subtle differences in the prose depending on whose perspective we're on, but it's nothing major as the story is told in a third person perspective that feels almost (but not quite) omniscient, so the personalities of the characters shine more on the dialogues (which are done really well) rather than the narration itself.

While this might not be the best choice if you're looking for a Lovecraftian horror taking place in NYC (that would be The Dead Take the A Train, which did the whole cosmic horror stuff better than this book did, if nothing else.), Jemisin's The City We Became is a great urban fantasy novel filled with a diverse set of compelling and imperfect characters who are thrown into this crazy situation. It's the ultimate urban fantasy book in the sense that the book really explored the "urban" using fantastical plot devices that you can't find in genres other than fantasy. If you're someone who enjoys stories where the settings are described so well they become their own characters, definitely pick up this book. 4/5.