As others have observed, this is a book that defies what one thinks one likes in a book. I vaguely resent contemporary settings (unless I'm not really invested in the book and just breezing through it), gangsters annoy me, and yet this book was incredibly compelling.
It's not that I couldn't put it down. I put it down for a week because I was pretty sure about something that was going to happen to one of the characters and I was too invested in the story that I didn't want to see it happen.
I was right. I'm still mad, but in a good way.
There is a nerve that contemporary settings and power struggles between corrupt people strikes, at least in me. The term "too close to home" comes to mind in this, the year 5779. There's a difference between something that is not precisely to my taste and something that is not well executed. Jade City is extraordinarily well executed, to the point that it mostly overrode the ways in which it was not to my taste. But that little fizz of discomfort remained. It makes me hope that Lee writes more books, some of which are in my wheelhouse. Because she's a gorgeous writer and I legitimately had a hard time going on to a new book after I finished.
And I'm STILL mad about that character.