The city of New York is coming to life. All great cities have a soul, but some of them become embodied in a human avatar who guards the city from the extra worldly forces that lurk in the shadows trying to kill cities before they have the chance to awaken. Somehow, as NYC begins to awaken she ends up with FIVE souls. One for each of the boroughs, but they have to find each other first and come together to save the city and time is running out.

The City We Became by NK Jemisin is a love letter to New York City. And even me, who has never been there, can enjoy it. The characters were AWESOME. Fantastically diverse and really well realized too. From Indigenous Bronca the ass kicking independant queer artist running an artists collective and trying to fend off threats from extremely gross misogynistic racist bigots to Queens, embodied as Padmini is an immigrant Tamil mathematician, to Manny, a newcomer to Manhattan who feels an incredible pull towards the first Avatar. And that’s just scratching the surface! I loved getting to see the city through each of their eyes and seeing them come into their own as avatars of the city to fight off the lovecraftian monsters. There’s queer love in lots of forms underpinning the entire story and I loved that. I’m not doing it justice with my effusive gushing, but it was excellent. I couldn’t put it down, I was racing to find out what was going to happen!