This is one of those reviews where I've had to let it stew in my brain for a while before committing it to existence, not because it's not a good book (it is, which will come as no surprise to pretty much anyone who's enjoyed something written by this author in the past) but because it didn't quite do what I was looking for from a second book. Maybe it was partly me, as I didn't get around to re-reading the first one as I'd planned to do, maybe it's partly that it's been re-imagined from a trilogy to a duology and that shows at times?

The World We Make picks up a few months after the previous book finishes, with the various members of the loose group that make up New York trying to figure out their own and collective way forward. There's a lot going on here - maybe a little too much for one book - with both a new enemy within, in the shape of an extremely oleaginous mayoral candidate, and the looming enemy just over the water in Staten Island. There are also conflicts within the group, which means plenty of dynamics that are generally handled well, though the relationship between Neek and Manny didn't quite work for me.

All in all, I enjoyed reading it but it just doesn't strike me as a book (or series) I'm going to want to re-read, which is a massive shame as I felt much more positive about The City We Became.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, via Netgalley. This is my honest opinion on the book in question.

I do like this sequel but there are things that I think overpowered the whole theme of the story.

The world setting of this series is unique and a fresh new take on fantasy. Jemisin made you travel along NewYork with its vast storytelling and colorful writing making it more nostalgic and compelling.

But The World We Make is more political and focuses too much on every character which for me made it more contemporary young adult than contemporary urban fantasy, Jemisin also stresses some political insights which is good but it losses touch to the fantasy side.

‘Every great city has a soul. A human avatar that embodies their city's heart and wields its magic. New York? She's got six. But all is not well in the city that never sleeps.’

My thanks to Little, Brown Book Group U.K./Orbit for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The World We Make’ by N. K. Jemisin.

This is the second and final book in N. K. Jemisin’s Great Cities Duology that combines urban fantasy, science fiction, politics, and horror.

In her Acknowledgements Jemisin advises that “The Great Cities trilogy that I’d initially planned became a duology because I realized my creative energy was fading under the onslaught of reality, and I didn’t have it in me to write three books in this milieu.” I am grateful that she was able to continue and complete the story.

Given that this is a tale told over the course of two books, they are best read in order. As a result I am wary of spoilers for ‘The City We Became’ so just a general overview.

It’s been three months since New York City came alive and six New Yorkers became its living avatars - one for each of its seven boroughs, minus Staten Island. While there’s been a brief hiatus in the conflict, it’s not long before the Enemy (with a capital E) is back.

Jemisin’s writing is so vivid both with respect to her myriad characters and the energy that she brings to her world building incorporating elements from the real world including gentrification, protests, and a politician with the slogan, ‘Make New York Great Again’. In addition, I appreciated the interludes and appearances of other city avatars.

Overall, a stunning conclusion to the story of the Great Cities written with wit and social awareness. Her writing demonstrates her confidence with the tropes of the horror and urban fantasy genres and a willingness to be playfully subversive.

Highly recommended.

I read the first one and knew I would need to read this the second I knew it existed. This duology is fantastic as we see the city literally come to life, and they make for incredible characters to read with a plot that is packed with tension and a pace that works perfectly for this book.

How this book is written like you are watching it happen, makes for such a great tension in this book, it feels so real and atmospheric on every page that I feel like I am reading about something I shouldn't, particularly the moments between New York and Manny, all the way to the last page. It's so personal and brilliantly written and I love this book for that. It makes you feel everything.

The battle scenes are cinematic in this book, reading them makes me think I want to see what this would like because the detail and the imagery is so incredibly done particularly in the ending sequences and it makes for such incredible reading (I think I might listen to this later on audiobook because I bet it will sound so good).

I really appreciate Jemisin's writing, The World We Make is a world this author built and I will happily inhabit it again and again.

The World We Make is the final book of The Great Cities duology. If you like the first book this is a must read. N.K Jemisin's writing is really creative and magical. I've never been to New York but her writing pictured the city vividly for me. As for the story I really enjoyed it. We can understand the group dynamic better in this book since all five of them are together. I also really enjoyed reading about other cities' interactions too. This was a perfect ending to this duology and I highly recommend it.

The World We Make is the conclusion to NK Jemisin's duology that she began in The City We Became. New York is fully personified: the city and its five boroughs are all represented by avatars. They're anything but united though—the eerie city of R'lyeh hovers over Staten Island, as its representatives attempt to kill the city through any means necessary—whether through a new, fascist mayoral candidate or through slow degradation of the spirit of the city.

I honestly think that this sequel is an even better novel than the first. It's an exciting, rich fantasy fight featuring relatable and lovable characters battling an eldritch evil that uses as its weapons the real-life horrors so many cities have dealt with over the past few years. We get to meet new cities as New York seeks allies in its fight. The fast-paced writing packed with humor and action makes the book impossible to put down.

I'm always a sucker for the romance angle, and this book was no exception. There was so much pining between Manny and Neek, and I loved to see it. I only wish the resolution didn't feel so fast, but that's my critique in general for the ending.

This book tackles a lot of current issues when it comes to politics, the far right, xenophobia, police brutality, deportation, and much more. And, weirdly, I think seeing New York fight against those relatively normal things (backed by the Ur), made the story shine for me. I think that's because the Ur still felt kind of abstract--I understand that R'lyeh is monstrous, and I'm not saying the descriptions of her sending out tentacles weren't clear enough, it's just that the evil of all those other (very real and current) things kind of felt like they were a more imminent danger.

I still think this series is fun and unique in what it does, and definitely recommend picking it up.

Thanks Netgalley and Little Brown for this advanced copy.

The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin is the sequel to her best selling and highly acclaimed The City We Became and completes the Great City duology. I would highly recommend reading that book first as it gives a lot of the background and character development that is crucial to understanding and enjoying this book. Once again we join the human avatars of New York City as they try to defend their city and the world from a mysterious enemy, the Woman in White who now has a stranglehold on Staten Island and is determined to do whatever it takes. Since pure brute force was not enough, this time she is using dirty tactics and even dirtier politics, The boroughs will have to stand together stronger than ever before if they are to convince the other great Cities of the world to join the fight
Once again the reader is drawn into this book by the power and heart of its characters, a diverse group with the ability to charm and aggravate in equal measures. I loved seeing more of the interactions and dynamics between the borough avatars and I really liked getting to see some of the other City avatars. I think the author's decision to condense her intended trilogy into a duol.ogy was a good one as this felt like a tighter book overall , even if the ending seemed ever so slightly rushed and there was one avatar's story in particular that I would have liked to have more of. There is a lot of social commentary woven into this book and I though it was well integrated into the story which touches on topics ranging from gentrification to police brutality.
Overall I found this to be a thought provoking and very well written book and one that I would definitely recommend.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

Probably one of my most anticipated titles of this year, and I actually squealed when I got approved.
Several months have passed since The City We Became, a book you need to read before continuing with this one. Jemisin tries to get off where she left.
The burroughs are on alert and trying to get the attention of other cities to help them fight against the white woman. Again. This time she allies with a new candidate running for mayor of New York ( with the slogan "Let's make this city great again!" ) This goes on for the first half of the book.
It was shockingly dragging. I was bored most of the time, and if not bored, annoyed. At around 43 % I seriously contemplated DNF-ing it. Only knowing this would be the end of the story made me finish it. I am thankful Jemisin changed this from a trilogy to a duology, as I would not be interested in reading more from this universe. She herself mentioned in the acknowledgements that she herself didn't care anymore for this world and contemplated DNF-ing it herself. It shows. Thank you to netgalley and the publisher.

My thanks to both NG and the publisher for an ARC of this phenomenal book. I’m keeping this as spoiler free as I can, which isn’t easy, so I apologize if my review is duller!

The World We Make picks up three months after the events of The City We Became – which was, admittedly, not a book among my favourites. It’s been a while since I read it and I still am unable to tell what exactly I disliked. I was curious about what happens after and I enjoy Jemisin’s work, so I knew I would read the sequel, but I approached it with wary steps.

TWWM is very different to TCWB in more ways than one, and possibly the main reason for this difference is stated in the author’s notes – The Great Cities was meant to be a trilogy, but ended up as a duology. Others before me have already said that this is visible in the book, so I won’t, but I didn’t find it a bad thing (my final thought is that, while different, they complement each other well, as well as any duology that was meant to be a trilogy can).
The first book in this series is very slow with long introductions to the characters, their personas, the kind of people they would (will) be as avatars. The slow pace was, at moments, frustrating. There is less of a similar build-up in this sequel, and the book is far more fast-paced. Not in the sense that all of the events happen quickly or in a short span of time, but there was less beating around the bush. Things were meant to happen, so things happened.
Looking at TWWM as a fantasy novel, it’s wonderful. The worldbuilding in this duology is great – the concept of cities being Alive, breathing, existing, of there being people who become the physical embodiment of a city is, frankly, one of the most interesting fantasy concepts out there. While Jemisin is definitely not the only who does it, her approach to this topic was unique and very well done. (Take a great concept like this and mix it with her writing? Come on, something great is bound to come from it) TCWB left me with a lot of unanswered questions about this, and many of them (if not all) have been answered in the sequel.
Book one was quite densely packed with social commentary & criticism, and while book two continues with it, it’s somewhat less so and leaves more room for the eldritch and fantasy aspects of the world. It’s a book that’s enjoyable to read prose-wise but doesn’t give you a lot of opportunities for your mind to roam free and not think about what it is telling you. Giving a cosmic horror face to the problems we’re grappling with is a brilliant choice, and I can see this becoming a classic in the future.
It was nice to dip my feet back in this world and meet the characters again, and this book was a refreshing read. The conclusion was a bit fast and abrupt, and while I think a certain someone making a different choice in the end would have carried a bigger punch, everyone landed on the feet (or tentacle) they were supposed to.

This latest series from NK Jemisin has gone to a duology rather than an a trilogy, for reasons the author recounts in an afterword, and hence this is the final volume. She is of course perfectly entitled to do what she wants with her work, and it’s not for me to question her motives, but I do think this reduction undercuts the series. The ending is too quick and easy, which would be fine if it was a question of getting pieces off the board ready for the next volume, but is a little bit too pat if this is really it. And the climax to one of the borough’s storylines feels like it should be weightier than it is, and is just left sat there, waiting to be followed up on. But, y’know, leaving you wanting more isn’t exactly the worst crime a book can pull, is it? Yes, it’s a bit frustrating, but it’s still a deliciously readable novel, and there’s plenty of stuff to like here, from the characters and relationships, to the angry political engagement, as well as the expansion of the core concept with appearances from other cities. But it’s New York, in all it’s vibrancy and contradiction, that’s the star.

This is a solid ending to a duology with a super interesting premise. The author chose to keep it to two books instead of three, and she explains why in her author's note, which I highly recommend you read for context. However, I do think that you can tell it was meant to be three books, particularly when it comes to the ending.

I think I liked this one more than the first book, for a number of reasons. In the first book, it took a while for everyone to come together and trust each other, and we didn't really get to see much of the group dynamic. There is much more of that here, and it's delightful. We get to see the group's bond with Neek, their avatar, and how they are both protective of him and in awe of what he does. We get to see them rally around one of their own when something bad happens. I do wish there had been a bit more of that, but I was happy with what I got. The exception is Aislyn; I really wasn't satisfied with how her arc developed, and she came across as very wishy-washy in the decisions that she made.

I'm always a sucker for the romance angle, and this book was no exception. There was so much pining between Manny and Neek, and I loved to see it. I only wish the resolution didn't feel so fast, but that's my critique in general for the ending.

This book tackles a lot of current issues when it comes to politics, the far right, xenophobia, police brutality, deportation, and much more. And, weirdly, I think seeing New York fight against those relatively normal things (backed by the Ur), made the story shine for me. I think that's because the Ur still felt kind of abstract--I understand that R'lyeh is monstrous, and I'm not saying the descriptions of her sending out tentacles weren't clear enough, it's just that the evil of all those other (very real and current) things kind of felt like they were a more imminent danger.

I do think there was a lot of potential to develop the series further, especially with the introduction of other cities. We only get a couple of interactions with them, which is a shame because it didn't give them the room to shine. And where I was hoping that would change during the final battle, that was over so fast that I barely noticed it happening. The way this ends feels very rushed.

I still think this series is fun and unique in what it does, and definitely recommend picking it up.

The City We Make by N.K. Jemisin is the eldritch finale to her Great Cities duology, a triumphant ode to great cities, culture and New York. It fixes some of the flaws of the first book, but the struggles have even stronger parallels in the real world than last time, which may make this a difficult read for some.

The NY boroughs are back, and this time with the main avatar himself at the head of the pack. This time the entire world is at stake, with closer to home stakes like a mayoral race and the ever present threat of the White Lady and her machinations. Jemisin’s characters just pop off the page, and her prose is, as always, a pleasure to read. Each borough gets a chance to shine, and they spend more time together in this one than before.

A complaint others had of the previous book is the perceived New York exceptionalism. This time we see a lot more city avatars, and each city has their own unique features, with many before having multiple avatars. Any sequence where we get extended time with one of the other cities is great, and New York just seems to have the right combination of bad luck and attitude to be in the position to save the world.

This book does feature a lot of pressing social issues, like police brutality, racism in its many forms, forced gentrification, manipulation of legal loopholes, cultural homogenization, misuse of charities etc etc. I tend not to frame my reviews in terms of the current sociopolitical landscape, but western politics and social issues have been relentless in the last few years, including an actual attempted coup on a country that was once thought to have a stable government. What I’m trying to say is, it can be hard to read about something so close to reality in a fantasy book – normally there’s at least one level of removal that lets you enjoy the situations from a little more distance while still knowing exactly what it’s trying to portray. That said, at least in this book the protagonists have kick ass city powers that they can use against their problems (and sometimes their problems turn into more dangerous but less politically charged cthonic monsters).

Some of the overarching threat is a little too abstract for my liking, but I really liked the way things were resolved, and Staten Island got a good journey in this book too. We also get some background on Manhattan, finally finding out where he came from before the city, and it added a nice extra layer to things. I think some of these storylines could have used a bit more time to breathe, but there’s a reason this trilogy was downgraded to a duology. Jemisin mentions in the acknowledgements that the political landscape of the USA made this book a very difficult one to write, and I’m grateful that she persevered to give us a worthy ending, even if I do love the setting.

So, The City We Make is well worth reading if you enjoyed the first book, and probably fixes any smaller quibbles you might have had with it. It’s a book with a lot of heart, a lot of energy and some villains that are faaar too real.

Rating: 9/10

tl;dr There’s a classic New Yorker cover of the World As Seen From 9th Avenue that gives as much space to the block between 9th and 10th as it does to everything between Jersey and China, and that’s The World We Make in a nutshell: New York is £!$£$ amazing, and everything else is…decent? Also there? This is a good problem to have in a lot of ways, but may explain why Jemisin has cut our tour of the Great Cities short. Home is just more fun, why leave?

—————

Mind you, being a homebody isn’t exactly a bad thing when you’re talking about the New York of The City We Became: it’s got tentacular action beats, quirky city avatars bouncing off each other, screw-you-pay-me attitude. But then what to make of The World We Make’s title, that promise this book isn’t just a big expansion pack, there’s a whole world beyond the Hudson to explore and fight for?

To be fair, Jemisin backs up this promise to an extent. We visit a few new cities and meet the avatars of several more, tie up that colossal multi-multiversal plot, drop some tantalising hints that a few “normal” humans are in on the urban transcendence grift. And there are flashes of brio here, like a meandering but lovely description of an Istanbul morning by the Bosporus or London’s flashes of alarming eccentricity, but those moments of rich specificity are harder to come by than they are back in the boroughs.

Some of this is probably unavoidable — anyone would struggle to breathe as much verve into an unfamiliar city as one they’ve lived much of their life in — but after the care put into making Queens and Mannie and Aislyn and all the rest recognisably complicated (super)humans with complicated relationships to clam pie, it’s a bit of a letdown to find out that Paris is a petite, haughty and fashionable woman, or that Amsterdam is tall, blonde and bluntly rude. I mean, of course they are, but on that logic New York should have been an abrasive Wall Street finance bro or an Italian American caricature, and thankfully it’s not.

And this is even before we get to issues like…wrapping up the entire transdimensional kerfuffle that kicked the series off in a single chapter. This isn’t as bad as it sounds if you take the perspective that these books are much more about the little iniquities and joys of city life than grandiose cosmic showdowns, but it’s still fair to have hoped for something more graceful.

Reading Jemisin’s postscript actually helped reconcile me to this, as it’s clear that The Great Cities series, like so much recent spec-fic, has been upended by Trump and COVID and all the other madness that awaits us every morning now. Like satire, near-future sci-fi perhaps needs a rethink to survive in this new environment, now that the speculative so often just isn’t, and I actually really appreciate that Jemisin decided to get out while the getting is still good.

Which, despite the quibbles I have with The World We Make, it really is. The avatars’ street level battles with Squiggly still pop with quick-cutting prose and fist-pumping victories. Slightly neglected characters from the first book like Jersey and Queens get some welcome authorial attention. The politics remain right-on and humane, touched with little Easter eggs — you have to love what happens to I Can’t Believe It’s Not Gavin McInnes — that keep the tone light but also grounded in our world. I’d love to come back to this New York, and I’m grateful we’re ending out trip while I still want more.

Thanks Netgalley and Little Brown for this advanced copy.

I truly understand that this series end up in duology than a trilogy. But, hey, I think This Book is a perfect way to end their story. The best thing so far (as for me) for this book is the a-spec representations. N. K. Jemisin also has unique writing style that keeps me reading this book from the first page until the end

City magic is liminal. It likes the hidden stories, the perceptual/conceptual shifts, the space between metaphor and reality. [loc. 3218]
Sequel to The City We Became, concluding what is now a duology instead of a trilogy: Jemisin, in her Acknowledgements, notes that 'reality moves faster than fiction', that her creative energy 'was fading under the onslaught of reality', and that 'the New York I wrote about in the first book of this series no longer exists'. Covid, Trump, Deep Fascism: nevertheless, she persisted...

The avatars of the five allied boroughs of Greater New York, excluding Staten Island but including Jersey City, are dealing with an incursion from Ur-space: the white city of R'yleh hangs over Staten Island, visible to only a few, inimical to human civilisation. The Enemy's weapons are elegant and subtle: Brooklyn's house is being sold without her permission, due to misfiled taxes; Padmini loses her job and therefore her visa; and Manny starts to remember his past life -- which seems to preclude his present occupation as avatar of Manhattan. In this volume, we encounter other city avatars and other spaces. I was especially taken with Istanbul (who loves his cats) and London (slightly batshit but utterly charming, which feels about right). There's more of Sao Paulo and Hong Kong, and a scene in the ruins of Atlantis. And the finale is elegant, too, relying on Padmini's understanding of quantum states and Bronca's experience of the relationship between fear and hatred. It's a triumph for inclusivity, diversity and tolerance -- themes that are threaded through the novel -- and an uplifting, joyful conclusion.

Which is not to say that The World We Make (hmmm, I wonder which world is being made, and by whom?) is flawless. There are a few plot threads that don't seem to lead anywhere (Brooklyn's favour from 'Bey'), some elements that felt jarring (Manny's backstory), character development that could have done with a little more detail (Neek): I found the pacing quite uneven, especially in the last few chapters. None of that stops it being joyful, inclusive, expansive and very entertaining -- at least for me -- but I do mourn the trilogy we might have had.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication date is 01 November 2022.

Wow! That was phenomenal! I’m absolutely blown away by the creativity and imagination of this author. And the fact that they adapted the original concept, because the real world is so crazy, and still managed to hit it out of the park, is testament to their incredible storytelling ability.
If you could imagine the great cities as people, what personalities would you give them? And if that city had multiple distinct districts, how would that work in terms of unity?
New York is split into 7 boroughs so that’s a lot of personalities fighting to work together whilst staying true to themselves. And they have to work together to fight inter-dimensional evil! The characters are perfect and I really loved the personification of the different cities around the world.
A truly brilliant duology.
Honest review given in exchange for an advance reading copy.

First of all, I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of the book in return for an honest review. As this is part 2 of a duology, you can also find my review of part 1 on Goodreads.
The story continues to follow the conflict between the newborn New York and its borroughs on the one hand, and the Ur on the other. The conflict between Staten Island and the other BY borroughs also persists. We get introduced to many other cities, finally understand the reasons for the meta conflict, get a glimpse of the metaverse (with some quantum physics for dummies to boot), discover more about the relationships between and of the protagonists, receive further doses of vitriol against moder capitalism and the dominant political system, and participate in a mayoral race. Oh and there is also the micro universe. No spoilers though. Just teasers.

What to like about this book? Jemisin is a phenomenon. Her writing is captivating, and her ability to create characters one falls in love with is among the top 5% of authors. She is also able to inject emotion and sentiment into an otherwise caricaturististic urban fantasy with deft and precision.

What is there to dislike? Well... a lot. I will mention but the few things that come to mind most of all.

First, the writing is erratic and jumpy. Sometimes things move quickly, and sometimes whole months pass between chapters. Hard to follow.

Second, while characters develop, they develop without the full narrative of how and why. They just change. Like Neek. And it's never clear why.

Third, the story has numerous holes that are glaring and galling. How come Manny's family knows about Cities? Why do the Proud Men disrupt the court proceedings? What happens to the passengers that went overboard during the ferry episode? How do cities communicate with each other? Why is there such discrepancy between campaign financing scrutiny in the two sided of the mayoral race?

Fourth, while I love the author to bits, and adore her imagination and fantasy, her understanding of how politics works (the mayoral election....) and how companies work (so called "evilcorp"...) is either a badly executed joke, or a sign of deep ignorance. I'm not sure what's worse.

Fifth, while some of the toxicity towards white people and corporations has been played down vs the previous installment, some of it persists, and it is both annoying and lazy. Even within the universe that the author creates, banks and corporations should be as much a part of the fabric of NY as working class people and minorities.

Sixth, some parts of the book are wildly derivative. And before the reader of this review screams that this both a homage and criticism of Lovecraft, some of the references are just lazy. They oscillate between the plain lazy (Poe) and the offensively lazy (borrowing the NYC character from A Little Life).

Lastly, while I love LGBTQ characters getting the attention they should have always had, this deserves to be done well. While many other authors do this justice (as per my review of the prior installment) Jemisin just doesn't. The obsession with sexual orientation of all the protagonists is just odd. It doesn't add anything to the story, in my opinion.

Worst of all, it just feels like the author I learned to love through her first three Fantasy universes (and numerous short stories) is just gone. Like she was replaced by someone else - an angry, impatient, bad writer.

Three months on from the events of The City We Became, and the freshly minted avatars of New York City are still settling into their roles. New York City himself, now calling himself Neek, is sharing an apartment with Manny and Veneza, whilst Padmini, Brooklyn and Bronca try to integrate their new reality with their existing family lives. Across the bay, self-exiled Staten Island huddles in the shadow of R’lyeh, but Aislyn is becoming increasingly ill at ease with the decision she made.

When the Woman in White turns her attention to the xenophobic populist candidate for New York mayor, the avatars discover that there are more ways than one to attack a living city and that maybe, this time, the united boroughs and a newly birthed New York won’t be enough to repel the threat that is coming not just for them, but for all the Great Cities.

It’s been a long wait for this much-anticipated sequel to The City We Became, which has possibly led to me building unrealistic expectations, but I have to admit to feeling a little disappointed. The depth of city anthropomorphism in the characters developed in the first novel is largely missing and, for me, really only nudges through in our introduction to a couple of the old Cities. I didn’t feel the same connection to the main characters, and most of the new characters are left seeming superficial.

I think this weakness, along with the decision to make this planned trilogy into a duology, has done The World We Make a disservice, leaving the narrative feeling rushed and somehow incomplete. I understand Ms Jemisin’s reasons behind her decision to cut the story short, but it just didn’t work for me.

I received a free reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I had enjoyed The city we became, so was looking forward to reading the second book in the duo. It didn't quite live up to my expectations unfortunately

I enjoyed my time reading The World We Make, which was a relief after The City we Became left me on the fence. I think this book really benefits from indulging in slice-of-life elements: there are some lovely moments where the mystical city magic just supplements real human experience (almost verging on magical realism). I think those elements are stronger than the deep dive into metaphysics of cities and the multiverse, which can get a bit much (particularly in the climax). I also loved a real focus on the complex psychology of individuals, with Manny and Aislyn particularly feeling more compelling the messier and less concrete they are. But I do unfortunately think this book doesn't quite work, and reading the acknowledgements confirmed my sense that this series was hindered by the changing real world, and ended up getting a bit too tangled to resolve. There are too many characters in a relatively short pagecount, and some plots come and go so quickly that it can feel like the book (and Jemisin) hurried to the end a bit. I also am not really a city person, let alone a New Yorker, so this series's love for cities as the pinnacle of humanity was never going to fit with me entirely; nonetheless, the moments of thematic and imaginative brilliance in this duology more than makes it worth the uneven read.