Author: N K Jemisin
Published: 2020
Target Audience: Adults 18+
I sing the city.
Fucking city. 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 constructions site that blocks my view. I'm really singing to the cityscape beyond. The city'll figure it out.
N K Jemisin is an acclaimed American sci-fi / fantasy writer, and the first author in history to have won three consecutive Best Novel Hugo Awards for her Broken Earth trilogy. She has also been awarded the Nebula, Locus, and Goodreads choice awards for her work, and nominated for many more. 'The City We Became' is her latest book.
Published in 2020, 'The City We Became' is an adult urban fantasy novel which explores the idea that while many cities can feel alive, some cities truly become alive. Compounding years of history, culture, thousands of inhabitants, and all the intricacies that make up a great metropolis, a city can develop a living, breathing soul in the form of a person. And New York City? She's just been born. And she's got five souls.
Manhattan. Brooklyn. Staten Island. Queens. The Bronx. Five New Yorkers unexpectedly become the living embodiments of the five boroughs of New York City overnight. Unsure of their new selves, and with only a subconscious instinct guiding them, they must find each other and learn to protect New York City before it is too late. Because newborn cities are vulnerable, and there is a sinister force that wishes to end New York City before it is fully realised.
'The City We Became' is a curious story that uses multiple diverse characters to explore and reimagine the city of New York in a fast-paced urban fantasy adventure. The writing has an immediacy that tends to 'tell' the audience what is happening, rather than 'showing'. This, coupled with rapid shifts to different locations and different character point-of-views every chapter, can be jarring for some readers. However, as the story progresses and the different characters physically and knowledge-wise draw closer together, the story becomes more streamlined, driven forward by a unique premise and engaging pace.
It is a straightforward read, not getting bogged down by the number of main characters or explanations of world building. Instead, 'The City We Became' uses these elements to explore NYC in all its intricacies, drawing upon the every-day experiences of 'the city that never sleeps' to fuel the fantastical elements of the story and propel the plot.
Excerpt:
After a long moment in which Bronca finally starts to calm down, Veneza says, "You know, I hated New York before I met you. You're the one who showed me how to love it."
"Kiss my ass." Bronca says it to the desk. She's sulking and she knows it and she wallows in it. "I hate this city."
Veneza laughs. "Yeah, well, you New Yorkers - everyone except the new ones - always say that. It's dirty and there's too many cars and nothing's maintained the way it should be and it's too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter and it stinks like unwashed ass most of the time. But ever notice how none of you ever fucking leave? Yeah, now and then somebody's elderly mom gets sick down in New Mexico or something and you go live with her, or you have kids and you want them to have a real yard so you bump off to Buffalo. But most of you just stay here, hating this city, hating everything, and taking it out on everybody."
"Your cheering-up technique needs work."
Veneza chuckles. "But then you meet somebody fine at the neighborhood block party, or you go out for Vietnamese pierogies or some other bizarre shit that you can't get anywhere but in this dumb-ass city, or you go see an off-off-off-Broadway fringe festival play nobody else has seen, or you have a random encounter on the subway that becomes something so special and beautiful that you'll tell your grandkids about it someday. And then you love it again. It glows off you, like a damn aura." She shakes her head, smiling to herself a little wistfully. "I get on the train to go home every day, and sometimes I look around and see all these people glowing. Filled with the beauty of this city."
'The City We Became' is Jemisin's homage to New York City and features a highly diverse line-up of characters. These two points are, paradoxically, both the strongest and weakest aspects of the novel. In personifying and vivifying NYC, Jemisin takes the reader on a detailed exploration of the city, drawing upon the positives, the negatives, and the everyday encounters that make up New York City as a real place, creating a vivid setting in which this fantasy story unfolds.
However, in specifically being a love letter to New York City, for those who do not live there, or those who are unfamiliar with it, or those who have no personal interest in the city, these readers may find it difficult to become invested in the story, as it is so intrinsically linked to the experience of NYC. Furthermore, in creating embodiments of the boroughs of New York, Jemisin has had the difficult task of treading the line between developing personifications that reflect the different areas in a relevant manner, and running the risk of employing oversimplified stereotypes relating to race, gender, class, and sexuality. How effective Jemisin has been in balancing these aspects will greatly depend on the reader.
The diversity of the book's main cast enables the creation of interesting characters, each with unique backgrounds and distinct voices which highlight the multicultural vibrancy of New York. Once again, however, whether Jemisin succeeds in her execution of this area will be highly dependent on the reader. Some readers may consider it an effective celebration of diversity, while others may find the over-examination of race and social justice issues abrasive and reminiscent of an argument on Twitter.
Reading is always a highly individual activity, with no two people ever experiencing a book in the same way. This concept is distinctly exemplified in 'The City We Became'. I would personally recommend this book to those who want a real insight New York City, as it truly captures the mundane and every day aspects of life in NYC with rich detail and unflinching honesty.
'The City We Became' is the first in N K Jemisin's The Great Cities Trilogy. It will be exciting to see what the series brings next.