The City We Became - Review July 2020

It's often said that the heart and soul of a city is it's residents. New York City is embodied by six residents, its avatars. When the city is born, its avatars are awakened with a sense of something amiss. Subsequent events allow the avatars to find each other and for them to work towards overcoming the challenge of maturing into a fully fledged city.

I chose to read this book as a means of diversifying the authors on my bookshelf and Jemisin certainly delivered! I really enjoyed the modern setting of New York for this fantasy and the clever use of the main characters to represent each borough. By basing each of the characters personalities on the stereotypes of each borough, Jemisin has created perfectly rounded characters who interact with each other as you would expect people from different areas to in reality.

Disclaimer: I cannot comment on the accuracy of this as I have never been to the US of A, let alone NY! As a complete outsider myself, I was fascinated both by the diversity of New York and it's history, both of which are wholly represented by the personalities and stories of each avatar.

My only gripe was the ending. For me, despite being the first book in a trilogy, the ending felt very sudden considering the amount of detail throughout the rest of the book. I am very ready for the remaining two books though!

The City We Became is the first book in The Great Cities Trilogy.