The City We Became

Conceptually this book is brilliant and a unique fantasy experience in my reading history. I suspect for those who need 50-50 character development to plot, or more heavy character development, might not be 100% in love with this book. I'm a very feely person, and there were no feels for the first 3/4 of the book. Action happens, there's flat dialogue, there's external conflict, there's background on characters, but there's reference to anger and love that only feels like words, not an emotional experience (which is what the strongest books convey in my opinion). Even the stakes never felt very high for most of the book, which they are in the book's reality.

By page 300 when what I've been waiting for finally [begins] to happen, I was getting the feels a bit more but still waiting for the emotional connection for the characters to each other, themselves and to their city. The main characters are avatars for their boroughs, but I never felt the power in what that means, I felt that power the strongest in relation to geography but not its people - though we're told about each borough's people a few times. I wish the events and conversations between page 300 and 400 had been moved up earlier, and then expanded much more. The last 50 pages were amazing, interesting and surprising.

The book is 3.5 stars for me. I hope down the road I'll reread this to see if I missed what I believe is missing and go to the rest of the trilogy.