The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin is the latest new book by this author and I have enjoyed everything else she has written.  This book was read by Robin Miles and the audio production was amazing.

Started: 4/14/2020
Completed: 4/19/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Words for which I sought help:

mandala -- a symbol that holds significance for both Buddhist and Hindu religions.

Review:

For some reason, I really enjoy humanized concepts.  I enjoyed Piers Anthony's Incarnation of Immortality series.  I immediately felt comfortable with a person embodying a borough of New York.  I am not a New York fanatic...I stayed once in Queens in a school trip, but it was at night and a ton of us in a small house.  I do not pretend that I am a New York guy and I am sure that there are a lot of fun things about New York that went over my head (I had no idea that Staten Island was a borough of New York).  I happened to be in Manhattan when the bomb went off in the World Trade Center (I was staying in the hotel the night before), so I have a tiny, very short term perspective on Manhattan that is linked to a singular event.  I can remember standing in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral and being amazed at this Gothic style church somehow, inextricably linked to the sky scrapers that surrounded it.  I remember looking at the names in the cemetery, briefly, but not taking enough time to remember the details.

This book talks about the embodiment of New York.  There is an avatar for each borough and each avatar experiences New York differently.  The embodiment of the whole of New York is late to the story and is the only one to experience New York as a whole.  This is just a fun story of New York fighting off invasion from an extra dimension.

I think that there is tremendous value in listening to this book.  There was a lot of work that went into the audio version and it is truly a performance.