2022: A love letter to New York City!

For a fantasy novel, this was extremely grounded. Literally - it's just *such* a New York book. If you love NYC, you will have a much better starting place going in to this. I think it would be a difficult read for anyone who wasn't familiar with the City. Like, if you don't know what the BQE or Lex is, Jemisin does not waste time in defining them for you. It was a joy to revisit a city that I love, but I do think that this would have been more annoying if I had never lived there.

My biggest knock was the pacing of the book. It started off really fun and fast, but the next 150 pages were just experiencing the same event from five different perspectives. 200 pages in and nothing new had happened - it dragged! It picked up a little going into the end, but not enough to warrant a full five stars.

I absolutely love the way Jemisin treated Staten Island (brutal but very true!) and Jersey City (also true lolol). This story made me miss NYC very much. An excellent introduction for my first NK Jemisin book!