And even their flaws – their tempers, their biases, their selfish tendencies, are treated with understanding because though they might be mini-cities, they are still, also, human. We spend several chapters with each one getting to know them, their work, and the people they care about (if they have any), which ends up being important because the Woman in White’s attacks against them are deeply personal. I don’t know New York City well enough to know if these characters are great representations of these boroughs, but the novel made me believe that they are and their personalities are vivid and well-defined. But there is an enemy, represented by the Woman in White, who is using unprecedented tactics to prevent the full development of New York. New York is just the second city in the New World to be born – the first was Sao Paulo, who has arrived to assist with this new birth. These boroughs are meant to assist the full embodiment of New York, a young, nameless, gay Black artist experiencing homelessness because his mother wouldn’t accept him, with the city’s birth as a Great City. In order to succeed, and become a Great City, New York must be represented by a group of avatars who embody its boroughs: Manhattan (human name: forgotten), a young man of ambiguous ethnicity who is new to the city, wealthy, and capable of violence when necessary Brooklyn (that is her human name), a Black middle-aged former rapper turned city councilwoman The Bronx (Bronca), a queer elder Lenape artist who runs an art gallery Queens (Padmini), an Indian financial engineer in New York on a work visa and Staten Island (Aislyn), a xenophobic white woman in her thirties who lives so far under her everything -ist father’s thumb that she’s never left the Island to visit the city proper. The City We Became is about the birth of New York City on a multiversal level. “This is the lesson: Great cities are like any other living things, being born and maturing and wearying and dying in their turn.” p6, Kindle Version I have, however, read her short story collection How Long ‘til Black Future Month, wherein lives “The City Born Great,” the short story that The City We Became is based on and I remember wanting more when I finished it. If you know me, this will come as a surprise because 1) I love reading works by Black authors, especially women, and 2) I love science fiction and have been getting into fantasy lately. I’ll begin this review with a confession: this is the first novel I’ve ever read by N. A big, heavy gust of moist air tickles the hairs on my skin…I spend the next two days going all over the city, drawing breathing-holes everywhere, till my paint runs out.” p3, Kindle Version I pause and look around, confused for a moment – and then the throat sighs behind me. There’s a soft, strange sound as I lay down the last streak of black. “All I want to do is paint, man, because it’s in me and I need to get it out.

The city we became characters