The City We Became – N.K. Jemisin

Every city has a soul. Some are as ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York City? She’s got five.

But every city also has a dark side. A roiling, ancient evil stirs beneath the earth, threatening to destroy the city and her five protectors unless they can come together and stop it once and for all. 

What a book this is. It’s glorious in its scope, worldbuilding (albeit atop our own world) which is second to none, and characters? Oh, the characters.

I do love a story with a sense of place, and this book is ALL about place. Some books you feel that the location could almost be a character in itself, but in The City We Became, that is literally true. You see New York City is made up of five boroughs: Manhattan, The Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island. And it’s these five parts which make up the whole, which must come together to fight off the ancient evil which lurks beneath.

Jemisin’s knack for character really shines here. Each of the boroughs, much like in NYC itself (I imagine) has its own distinct personality, its own quirks, its own relationship with the others and the whole. And what I loved about this book is that Jemisin takes the time to let them come to life, to breathe and become real, even as the story whistles along at breakneck pace.

It’s a great story too – New York is in the process of being born, of becoming A City. Its city avatars, in the form of the boroughs, become aware of themselves as part of the larger whole, and the powers that come with it.

And there’s a missing sixth player in the game, the city itself. And the Enemy is cunning and crafty and immense and ancient, and will stop at nothing to destroy New York itself. Can the five come together to find the sixth in time to avert catastrophe?

I just love Jemisin’s writing. Each page oozes atmosphere, the dialogue crackles with life and the picture she paints of NYC is stunning in breadth and scope. This is full on, widescreen four-dimensional New York, sights, sounds and smells and all. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Hugely recommended.

The City We Became, by N.K. Jemisin is published by Orbit Books and is out now. Huge thanks to Nazia at Orbit for the advance review copy.