Summary
All is not well in the city that never sleeps. Even though the avatars of New York City have temporarily managed to stop the Woman in White from invading—and destroying the entire universe in the process—the mysterious capital “E” Enemy has more subtle powers at her disposal. A new candidate for mayor wielding the populist rhetoric of gentrification, xenophobia, and “law and order” may have what it takes to change the very nature of New York itself and take it down from the inside.
In order to defeat him, and the Enemy who holds his purse strings, the avatars will have to join together with the other Great Cities of the world in order to bring her down for good and protect their world from complete destruction.
My Thoughts
I loved The City We Became, and I loved the World We Make. I only wish this could have been a trilogy as intended so we could at least have one more book with these great characters I’ve come to love. In the acknowledgements N.K. Jemisin does say she intended this to be a trilogy, however, due to current events happening, she just couldn’t do it.
The characters are mostly the same as the ones we met in the first book, The City We Became. We do meet a few more established cities who have come to life. Our fearless New York characters try to get help from those other cities to fight the big bad. Things of course, do not go according to plan. Spoiling one of the other cities we see, I enjoyed the short visit from Atlantis we got to see.
The World We Make mostly takes place in New York and it’s Boroughs. We do see some of the big bad’s universe, and Atlantis. As I already said, Atlantis is probably my favorite place we see. Probably because it’s mostly nature, and there are no people. Perfect for an introvert like me. I enjoyed the way Atlantis was described, and the way N.K. Jemisin imagined it would appear.
The plot is event driven which is the best kind of plot to me. I tend to enjoy event driven plots over character driven. The big bad is stepping up their game to now kill New York City. This sparks certain events and reactions from our living Boroughs. At one point, Manny goes to his family for help, and that brings up something more than a few ‘oh my gosh’ and ‘what the heck’ moments and knowledge. I wouldn’t say things are fast, exactly, I think I would say the plot is more a medium pace.
Whether you have tried N.K. Jemisin and loved her or not, I think this is a new and unique story and duology you should try. If you or a friend don’t love reading, this is a duology I would suggest picking up if you are looking to try reading.