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“Stunning.”
— Christian Science Monitor
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“The book[‘s]…main project is one of bridge-building, knitting communities together, showing how the embodied boroughs must overcome their own prejudices.”
— New York Times Book Review
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“Robin Miles gives voice to everything New York in this fantastical celebration of the city’s spirit…Miles goes all-in with her energizing performance, making listening a joy. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile
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“The City We Became is thrillingly expansive without ever becoming abstract or high-flown. Speeding through its pages feels like walking down a beloved city block: gloriously familiar and yet always shimmering with the promise of the unexpected.”
— Los Angeles Times
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"The monstrous forces that threaten the living New York City parallel the forces authors like Jemisin and her contemporaries have fought against for years.”
— NPR
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“Highly recommended for anyone interested in some of the most exciting and powerful fantasy writing of today.”
— Booklist (starred review)
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“Although the story is a fantasy, many aspects of the plot draw on contemporary incidents…Fierce, poetic, uncompromising.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
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“A harsh love story to one of America’s most famous places. As raw and vibrant as the city itself, the prose pushes the boundaries of fantasy and brings home what residents already know—their city is alive.”
— Library Journal (starred review)
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“A wonderfully inventive love letter to New York City that spans the multiverse. A big middle finger to Lovecraft with a lot of heart, creativity, smarts, and humor. A timely and audacious allegorical tale for our times. This book is all these things and more.”
— Rebecca Roanhorse, author of Trail of Lightning
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“The City We Became is a raucous delight, a joyride, a call-to-arms, a revolution with plenty of dancing. Eat your heart out, Lovecraft.”
— Alix E. Harrow, author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January
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It's a glorious fantasy, set in that most imaginary of cities, New York. It's inclusive in all the best ways, and manages to contain both Borges and Lovecraft in its fabric, but the unique voice and viewpoint are Jemisin's alone.
— Neil Gaiman
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"The City We Became takes a broad-shouldered stand on the side of sanctuary, family and love. It's a joyful shout, a reclamation and a call to arms.
— The New York Times
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Jemisin is now a pillar of speculative fiction, breathtakingly imaginative and narratively bold.
— Entertainment Weekly
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A love letter, a celebration and an expression of hope and belief that a city and its people can and will stand up to darkness, will stand up to fear, and will, when called to, stand up for each other."
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—NPR
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"The City We Became is a raucous delight, a joyride, a call-to-arms, a revolution with plenty of dancing. Eat your heart out, Lovecraft.
— Alix E. Harrow, author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January
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Some of the most exciting and powerful fantasy writing of today... Jemisin's latest will attract ... even those who don't typically read genre fiction.
— Booklist (starred review)
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The most important speculative writer of her generation...She's that good.
— John Scalzi
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A love/hate song to and rallying cry for the author's home of New York... Fierce, poetic, uncompromising.
— Kirkus (starred review)
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N. K. Jemisin has captured the living, breathing soul of New York City in a way that only a writer of her skill can. The City We Became is a masterpiece that plays by no rules-beautiful, musical, joyfully weird, and as impossibly fantastical as it is deeply true.
— Peng Shepherd, author of The Book of M
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Without a doubt, one of the most brilliant books I have ever had the honor of reading. An homage to New York City, packed with all its love and harshness, and so incredibly inventive that I felt my own imagination and the boundaries of what fantasy can be expand.
— S. A. Chakraborty, author of City of Brass
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The greatest fantasy novelist currently writing turns her magnificent eye and ear and heart on New York City, and the result is every bit as full of love and rage and crazy compelling characters as my beloved city deserves.
— Sam J. Miller, Nebula-Award-Winning author of Blackfish City
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One of the most celebrated new voices in epic fantasy.
— Salon.com