The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
Published 2020 · 110,000 words · about 7 hours at an average pace · Fantasy, Science Fiction
How hard is The City We Became to read?
The City We Became scores 40 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 42 out of 100
- Contemporary urban vocabulary with Lovecraftian cosmic-horror terminology. Each borough's voice is distinct.
- Sentence structure: 40 out of 100
- Sharp, contemporary prose. Jemisin writes with the energy and rhythm of New York speech.
- Abstraction: 48 out of 100
- Cities as consciousness. Diversity as defense against cosmic horror. Lovecraft's racism explicitly inverted.
- Information density: 45 out of 100
- Five borough avatars, each with distinct communities; interdimensional threat mechanics; NYC geography and culture.
- Narrative indirection: 35 out of 100
- Multiple POV with the boroughs' perspectives converging. The Woman in White's nature is gradually revealed.
- Symbolic density: 50 out of 100
- The boroughs as New York's diversity. The Woman in White as nativism and cosmic alienation. The city as living community.
- Ironic distance: 30 out of 100
- Jemisin writes with passionate conviction. The humor is New York attitude, not ironic detachment.
- Resolution withholding: 42 out of 100
- First of a duology. The boroughs unite, but the larger threat remains. Staten Island's resistance is unresolved.
- Structural complexity: 38 out of 100
- Five POV characters representing five boroughs. Converging narratives with a clear antagonist.
How The City We Became is regarded
The City We Became holds a literary regard score of 66 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.