The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

Title: The City We Became (Great Cities #1) 

Author: N.K. Jemisin 

Date Read: April 30 2020

Published: March 24 2020 @ Orbit 

Genre: Urban Fantasy  

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

"I stand on the rooftop of a building I don’t live in and spread my arms and tighten my middle and yell nonsense ululations at the construction site that blocks my view. I’m really singing to the cityscape beyond. The city’ll figure it out."

The City We Became, the first in N.K. Jemisin's new Urban Fantasy series, follows the human avatars for the different boroughs of New York City: Manhattan, a grad student new to the city who forgets his name on the subway; Brooklyn, a musician-turned-politician who is fiercely protective of her family; Queens, another grad student who is Very Tired and usually carries snacks; the Bronx, an artist trying to protect her community; and Staten Island, a young woman terrified of the world around her. 

Each of these avatars (who often refer to themselves as the souls of the city) are awakened at the apex of a battle between a young boy representing New York City in its entirety and a Lovecraftian evil that is attacking him. They spend the rest of the novel reuniting with one another and trying to escape the evil while searching for the primary avatar, who has now disappeared. 

This book was expanded from a short story, which makes up the prologue, that details the battle between New York and the enemy (who is, at this point, a vague sea creature like evil that can only be seen by New York himself) and it is so difficult to describe because it is so wildly creative. Jemisin lets her love of the city grow in every direction, at odd angles, intertwining. 

The different boroughs are incredibly diverse in their backgrounds, a love letter to the multicultural nature of the city, and the story addresses in many different fantastical scenarios the threat of gentrification, the deep-seeded racism and bigotry of cities in North America, and the dangers that come alongside fear of the unknown. Jemisin does a beautiful job of carrying forward the action of the book while also interweaving these social issues as genuine threats to the survival of our main characters. 

All that being said, this does feel like it was expanded from a short story. The prologue is punchy and creative, and while that through line exists throughout the story, it is by leaps and bounds the strongest part of the novel as a whole. Unfortunately, despite great writing and a wildly imaginative set up, the narrative itself gets very repetitive: we're introduced to one of the souls of New York, that soul goes head to head with the sea-creature-esque monstrosity that is attacking the city that only they can see, and then they work toward finding the rest of the group, or the rest of the group finds them. Which happens four or five separate times. Which is a lot of times. 

Most of the middle chunk of the book feels like the story is spinning its wheels waiting for the whole group to each figure out what's happening individually, and we're taken along each time. And while I think there's a lot of important character portraiture that happens in that time, it probably could have been pared down. Even still, the ingenuity and clever allusions (being attacked by white hipsters in man buns was a particular favourite of mine) is enough to keep you moving forward. 

If you're looking for a creative, fantasy-infused story that also addresses the social issues of current times, Jemisin does not disappoint, and it's well worth the read if you're attracted to her musical writing style. It will be incredibly interesting to see how the story expands from here, likely outside of New York and toward the other great cities of the world. 

Find out more: Book Depository | Goodreads