Book Review: THE CITY WE BECAME (Great Cities #1) by NK Jemisin

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Come, then, City That Never Sleeps. Let me show you what lurks in the empty spaces where nightmares dare not tread."

NK Jemisin is pretty much an automatic buy ever since this fan tracked down her award-winning BROKEN EARTH trilogy (with all books winning the Hugo in three consecutive years!!). But this book is very different from her previous sci-fi / fantasy / genre-bending novels, because it is set in our own world.

Welcome to a world where cities have avatars, where New York has several because each of its boroughs has a distinct personification (and none of them are White!!). A damning treatise against systemic racism and a love letter to Jemisin's city, this is a thrilling action-packed novel that uses fiction's facade to highlight modern-day injustices that people of color face.

Jemisin has managed to turn all that justified anger into something beautifully hopeful. The over-all message is one of inclusivity borne out of mutual respect amongst peers.

If you knew nothing about the book, from the very first chapter you could tell that it was written in 2020, and that the author paid tribute to writers like Lovecraft and Whitman in borrowing their phrases but turning out something completely original. (Thank you to Le-Creative-Writing-Major-Twinnie for pointing out why the opening phrase "I sing the city" seemed so familiar!).

Jemisin's writing, built on building from past authors, is pretty much like cities built upon centuries of history, with all its people and cultures forming a unique entity whole unto itself.

And another reason why the first chapter sounded like a song I'd heard before became apparent when I dug up another Jemisin book of short stories, and saw that the second story (THE CITY BORN GREAT) was the first chapter of THE CITY WE BECAME.

I was a bit worried at first because I thought about how "dated" the language of the book is, so utterly modern, so 2020 with sentences like "She's got maximum Don't Give a F*** mode engaged, and I'm surfing on her b**** wave" and the concept of Starbucks as an aggressive evil eldritch monster.

But then again, I suppose I worry needlessly about future generations reading this book. After all, we read books in 2021 from centuries past, and still understand them (only with a bit more effort required, thank you footnotes!). Isn't literature lovely?

"It's impossible not to smile, too, even here at the end of the world. Joy is joy."

Jemisin is amazing! Looking forward to the rest of this new series!


View all my reviews