The City We Became plot summary
New York City is coming alive. Literally. Embodied by a scrawny homeless boy, guided by Sao Paulo, the city approaches the always-precarious birthing process. Unfortunately, it’s also under threat. Attacked in its most vulnerable moment by a hostile entity, the city’s avatar narrowly avoids defeat, and falls into protective stasis. Now it’s the up to the boroughs, Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island, to wake up and come together in defense of the city as a whole. But the Enemy isn’t finished with New York yet.
Content warnings:
- Abuse, including reference of child abuse
- Homophobia
- Racism
- Sexual assault
- Discussion of drug use
My thoughts on The City We Became
I’ve read N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy, which I absolutely loved. Something about her writing just enthralls me, honestly. The City We Became has its moments of being kind of high-concept, a bit weird and occasionally difficult to follow. And those could all be criticisms, but there’s something about Jemisin’s writing that I just find fascinating. The weirder the story gets, the more absorbed I am. I have complete faith in her, so I don’t mind muddling along for a while without fully knowing what’s going on!
The cast of characters is diverse and fascinating
The main characters are the personified boroughs of the city of New York: Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island. Each has a name and a personality of their own. They’re people who had lives before they woke up one day as the living embodiment of their boroughs, and I loved seeing the different ways they responded to their new responsibility.
The personified boroughs are a diverse group, representing the multicultural nature of New York. And this is a book that wholeheartedly embraces the social justice issues of today. The Enemy very explicitly weaponises racism and other forms of bigotry in its attempts to weaken the boroughs and keep them from uniting.
There’s very little subtlety in the themes of the book, but the characters still felt real and layered to me. They weren’t stereotypes, put to work to make a point.
The plot is simultaneously deeply weird and very familiar
Honestly, I found it difficult to follow some of the intricacies of the story. The key things were that the five boroughs need to get together to protect New York and allow it to come into its/his full power. The Enemy was trying to stop this from happening.
One fun touch was in the scenes where the boroughs had to face off against the Enemy. They fight using concepts that have particular power in their borough. So Manhattan, for example, can fight using the idea of money. It might sound weird, and it’s definitely difficult to picture, but I thought it was great and worked well within the story.
Underneath the particular fantasy elements, The City We Became got a lot in common with something like Avengers Assemble. It has a ‘getting the team together’ vibe in common with any ensemble action-adventure story.
The City We Became wasn’t without its flaws
The pacing of The City We Became wasn’t always its strong suit. The characters have to spend a lot of time talking about what they know, what they’re working out and what they’ve intuited. I didn’t mind this too much, if I’m honest. Partly because I liked seeing the characters interact, and partly because I needed things explained to me so I was happy to get some exposition! But it did undeniably slow down some sections of the book, which made it hard to maintain a sense of urgency around the characters’ objectives.
This one isn’t really a flaw, so much as something that played on my mind while I was reading. As much as I enjoyed it, I wondered if I was missing out on some dimensions of the story as someone unfamiliar with New York. Obviously I’ve been exposed to it through various films and TV shows, but I’ve never personally been, and don’t know much about the city itself.
In conclusion…
I really liked The City We Became, although I think it’s fair to say it won’t be for everybody. It can be convoluted, and it isn’t as tightly written as some of Jemisin’s other work. I do however think the concept is great, and well-executed on balance. I loved the characters we got to read about, and felt intrigued by the antagonist. I was thoroughly invested in the story’s outcome, and I’m definitely excited to read book 2 when it comes out!
0 Comments