Like, I love China Mieville’s Bas-Lag series, but don’t really care about any of his books set in London.

I like my fantasy and sci-fi books to be escapism, and the ones with a real-world aspect are never my favorites. The lack of five stars is a personal preference, not a problem with the book at all. Bronca (the Bronx) was my favorite character, but all the boroughs were interesting. Jemisin, it’s beautifully written and wonderfully creative. Sao Paulo is on hand to serve as a guide, but the Enemy has grown stronger and changed tactics since he became a city, so everyone has a lot to learn.Īs you’d expect from N.K. Of course, it’s not that easy, and there’s an Enemy that has been fighting the birth of new cities for centuries. These avatars have to figure out what the heck is happening to them (one day you’re a grad student, the next day you’re the living embodiment of Queens?!), find each other, and help NYC become alive. New York City has hit that tipping point, but has the interesting addition of the boroughs, so instead of one city representative, it gets six (each borough, plus an overall New York). When a city has enough people, history, culture, and personality, it can come alive, with a person becoming the living avatar of that city. While I did like it, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did Broken Earth. I read Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy last year and loooooooved it, so when The City We Became showed up as the choice for a meetup group book club, I was excited enough to plan to attend and not just lurk.

The city we became 2