A unique addition to N.K Jemisin's work. This story was perfectly paced and a fantastically unique twist on our world and currently political issues. As a non-New Yorker I felt as though this was a love letter to New York that I could enjoy and see the love for the city. True to Jemisin s wonderful writing and masterful storytelling I highly recommend it as a quick paced fun read that is still very nuanced and thoughtful!

A brilliant follow-up to NK Jemisin's The City We Became.Although the first volume was political in nature, it was much more about the individual avatars and the signifying details of each of New York's burroughs. What I loved about this is the way that Jemisin developed characters for the cities that the burroughs of New York interacted with. As a Londoner, I would love for this to be 'franchised' as I spent a number of happy moments exploring the characters of the different London Burroughs and their personalities. Paris was an absolute gem to meet, for example.
The story itself was also engaged much more strongly with US politics and the rise of Trumpism and the alt-right. I found this both funny and alarming as the actions of the Proud-Men were so realistic and over the top, at the same time.
A thoroughly good read and a strong reminder to love, respect and care for the places we love and to consider what it is about them that can, and do, define us.

I rated this 3.5 stars with a heavy heart
I love N K Jemsin but I felt this book wasn't up to her usual standards.
The first half was quite slow and difficult to get through.

The second half was a lot better but I found the ending hard to follow.

In the afterword the author says the struggled to finish the book because it just got too real and I felt that. My heart goes out to her

DNF @ 20%

Who’s got two thumbs and requested an ARC of the second book in a duology not realising it was the second in a duology? THIS GAL!

So before diving into The World we Make I had to hunt down a copy of The City We Became, and I have to express my sincerest apologies to the publisher because if I’d already read book 1 I probably wouldn’t have requested book 2. I enjoyed CWB but struggled with the heavy-handedness of the thematic messaging, something which usually gets stronger in later books in a series rather than lesser. Which was exactly the case with WWM, and why I very regretfully decided to set it aside so early.

Jemisin is an extraordinarily strong, talented and intelligent writer, and while I share her political views and strongly agree with the messaging she puts forward in this duology, for me the delivery is just too much. There’s nothing objectively wrong with how front and centre and turned up to 11 everything is, and it’s certainly not unrealistic—in many ways the most powerful part of this series is how much everything she puts on page when it comes to bigotry and intolerance is painfully true to life, even without cosmic interdimensional forces placing their hands on the scales—but when the worst of all possible human behaviour keeps showing up in every possible situation I can’t stop myself disengaging emotionally even when according to the internal logic of the story it all does make sense. For me the tipping point was when a race hate rally—naturally—turned violent, and the paintball guns were—naturally—filled with actually destructive frozen pellets, and while the cops were present, they were—naturally!—ignoring the whole affair and on the side of the racists, and the situation is—naturally!!!—defused by a MAGIC RAP BATTLE. Every part of this scenario is tragically believable (bar maybe the rap battle), but taken together, and when every other comparable scenario takes a similar route, I just have to tap out.

I definitely don’t *not* recommend this book, or this duology. They’re extremely well written, full of so much love and passion, and accomplish exactly what they set out to do. For many readers it’s exactly the punchiness of the message that will appeal. Honestly, they read very written for screen, and I think that made-for-TV nature will be a big plus for a lot of people. And I will say that while Jemisin’s messaging is extremely unsubtle, I didn’t find it crossed over into obnoxious talking-down territory, which is all too common with other authors. It simply wasn’t for me.

Many thanks to Little, Brown UK and NetGalley for the eARC! And sorry again for smash-requesting when I saw the name ‘NK Jemisin’ without double checking the book’s series status.

I loved the first book, and this is a fantastic sequel! Rich with a unique magic system based on avatars of various cities around the world, and centered in New York, the sequel is an exhilarating fight against the Woman in White, who is determined to destroy our world by any means. Underneath the story is a commentary about the world we live in today, and all that is wrong with it. Urban fantasy at its best, I highly recommend this series!

Such a perfect ending! Profound and perfectly in character.

I'm so impressed by how Jemsin carries her metaphor so seamlessly into every aspect of her worldbuilding and characterisation - this is simply the epitome of speculative writing.

I did think a few aspects of this book felt rushed, though (Manny's family! Come on, this is mega - don't throw it away), so I didn't love it quite as much as the first book. But I was certainly satisfied with the ending.

I didn't like the first book that much, but I really enjoyed this one! I was more engaged by the plot and more interested in the characters and how they relate to each other. This was a fun journey and I liked the way it was wrapped up. The writing was good, the themes were interesting, the introduction of other avatars was quite nice, and it didn't feel like reading this super long inside joke about New York, which was one of my issues with the first book. Overall, a very entertaining read and a nice conclusion to the story.

An amazing sequel to The City We Became and a satisfying conclusion to the duology.

The first book was in many ways a set-up for the big fight, so I was very curious where Jemisin would take the story. Luckily I can say, she didn't disappoint. I loved how N. K. Jemisin managed to make the stakes even higher in this installment of the series. We also delved deeper into all of the characters and their dynamics, especially Neek and Manny's, which I had been invested in since the first book. I also loved that Padmini was getting more page time and a fleshed-out character arc. Moreover, I loved how the worldbuilding expanded and we got to meet some of the other Great Cities, like Instanbul, Paris and London, who were so intriguing that I'm kind of hoping for a spin-off. I will say, some of the cosmic horror stuff definitely went over my head but that didn't impede my enjoyment of the book. 4.25/5 stars.

I read The City We Become a while ago so my memory of it is fuzzy but I enjoyed it and I was excited when this popped up on NetGalley.

Jemisin's writing is great and I'll keep reading her work. I thought that The World We Make was really good and I'd definitely recommend it. The story is interesting and it's a good read, I'm just not quite sure it's as good as some of her other work (especially The Broken Earth series)

I'm starting to realize newer Jemisin is just not really for me. I found City We Became to be tedious and overwritten but had some good ideas. This book just triples down on the things I didn't like and I ended up DNFing around 75%

A wonderful showcase for N K Jemisin's exquisite written skill and unbelievable creative mind. This will definitely be a marmite book for readers, but fans of this author will definitely give it it's flowers!

This is definitely a book that either you will love or hate. I was somewhere more on the love side but i did have issues with it.

The Great Cities is a good series. Jemisin has this weird and imaginative style of writing. Either you love it or not.

The Great Cities is a hit-and-miss for me. I do love the witty characterization of every city but the more I get through the book, the more I get lost and lose interest in them.

A fantastic follow-up and highly satisfying conclusion to the duology. Jemisin is so brilliant, her worlds so imaginative and her characters so stunningly rendered that it’s a pleasure to read her every single time.

Like the first book it took me a couple of chapters to get into the writing style and the fact the book is based around cities. I liked this book more than the first in the series.