You know how in a lot of books, there's a prologue that's written in really flowery, poetic language?
It might be retelling a myth or legend, and it's it's probably set a long time ago and somewhere far away?

And then it ends, and you get to Chapter One, and things are suddenly 'normal' and there are relatable characters introduced, and regular dialogue, &c, &c. And it's always a little disappointing.

Well, this whole book is like that prologue. It tells the story of a demon/avatar that is devoted to a city, and the fearsome angel assigned(?) to destroy that city.

Whether you like it will largely depend on whether you enjoy the writing. The language is beautiful - it's like a long prose-poem. But the writing style also makes the setting and characters feel very abstract and distant.

My love for Nghi Vo increases with each story that she writes. Her lush prose and the feral bite of its edges is a delight, no matter what world she chooses to explore. The City in Glass does so much in such a short time, creating a love affair between a demon and her city that feels as real as any human romance. I could easily see selling this to people who love This is How You Lose the Time War, for its imagination and the intimacy of the relationships within a vast and wondrous world.

Brilliant writing, as to be expected from Nghi Vo. Azril comes to life as much of a character as Vitrine and the nameless angel. The pacing goes slightly off in between, but the high fantasy effect remains powerfully in place throughout.

I'd like to start this off by saying this cover art is some of the coolest I've seen in ages. It fits the vibe of the story perfectly. This one was a little weird to start out with, but it really grew on me.

Thank you Net Galley for the ARC!
I was so captivated by the writing style and story telling. It was so dark and moody. Fans of Madeline Miller would definitely love this one. The line writing was so beautiful and felt like a fresh glass of water. Let it be known that this is one of those stories that is mostly vibes and not a lot of plot, but that is what I loved about it!

I don’t know if I’ll ever recover. No one writes like Nghi Vo. A demon and angel fall in love in the ruins of an ancient city. The city itself is love. What an epic love story about life and death, grief, and the weight and beauty of moving on. Gorgeous on every page.

The City in Glass's book blurb compared it to Calvino - and I definitely see this comparison, especially if you've ever read Invisible Cities! I think if you enjoy literary pieces that are "all vibes no plot", The City in Glass is a great place to start if you want to stick a toe into fantasy waters. If readers walk into this expecting a more typical genre fantasy or genre romance book, I think they might be disappointed. For this reason, while I like the cover, I don't actually think it accurately reflects the story itself.

At its heart, The City in Glass follows the relationship between a demon named Vitrine and her city, Azril. As the city rises and falls over time (including getting destroyed by angels, one of which is cursed to haunt the city), we follow Vitrine navigate grief, hope and memory to rebuild her city anew. While there are other characters that come and go (the story takes place across multiple centuries), it's really Vitrine's relationship with the city of her memory, and the city as it grows anew, that is the center heartstring of this novella.

This is my first piece by Vo but I know she has written other fantasy-categorized pieces, so I'm not sure if this is her typical writing style and approach. I'd be interested in trying more from her, but I think I'd have to be in the right mood.

I got my eARC from Netgalley and Tor Publishing! The City in Glass releases October 1, 2024!

With The City in Glass, Nghi Vo has created yet another world that I couldn’t step away from. While the absolute poetry of the writing made me want to slow down and savor this book, I couldn’t tear myself from its pages and instead have just promised myself rereads.

The plot follows Vitrine, a demon who is essentially playing a multi generational game of the SIMs with one particular city. She has followed family lines over centuries, helping to shape what the city becomes, and she loves it and the people in it tremendously. But one day a group of angels is sent to obliterate her beloved city, and Vitrine is left deep in grief and not knowing how to even begin rebuilding after such a devastating blow to her life’s work and the loss of people she cared for. As she navigates that grief she curses one of the angels, who shadows Vitrine as she rebuilds, and gives her a place to hone her anger.

As in Vo’s other works, this world is queer normative. The relationships described in Vitrine’s rebuilt city include lesbian, gay and trans characters.

The resolution of the relationship between Vitrine and the angel is a striking metaphor that I won’t ruin here, but it left me feeling like I immediately wanted to discuss the ideas therein. Its imagery alone is beautiful, but the idea of (after hundreds of years) finally feeling safe enough to let what you care about most live outside yourself is so potent to me, and watching Vitrine’s path through her anger and grief felt so curative for my own anger and grief at losses I’ve experienced.

I was astounded as what a punch this book packs, for as quick a read as it is. I’m very thankful to Netgalley and Tor for an advance copy of this book. It’s definitely one I’m going to buy for myself.

From the very first chapter, I was struck by the imagery. So powerful, strange, fragile, defiant, and angry! I could really just sink my teeth into the prose. A quick read through centuries of fortune, destruction, and freedom.

Overall I really liked this story and my favourite thing were the characters. It was very unique in writing (I’m new to this author) and it did leave me with some questions throughout but got to me on an emotional level. The pacing was good and the story true to the premise!

5/5 stars
Recommended if you like: angels and demons, enemies to lovers, multigenerational stories, setting as a character

This review has been posted to Goodreads as of 5/31 and my review blog as of 6/13, and will be posted to Instagram 6/30.

This is an interesting book. It reminds me a little bit of City of Stardust or one of Neil Gaiman's books. The story is about Vitrine, sure, but I think it's more about the city of Azril and the way that it changes and the way that it's loved. There is tension in the book, but it isn't the tension of arguments or conflicts (though both are present) but rather the tension of the unending march of time.

Vitrine loves Azril. She had a hand in shaping it and raised it from what was essentially a pirate's cove into one of the greatest cities in the world. Naturally, she loses her shit a little bit when the angels destroy the city. But just because it's gone doesn't mean she's ready to give Azril up.

I really liked seeing how Vitrine made and remade the city. It was super interesting how things changed through time and how she made certain things fit together so that she got the result she was looking for. She wanted a strong leader for the city, so she convinced the pirate king's daughter to be cunning and vicious. She wanted silks and jewels, and so she coaxed traders from all over to come to the city. This could easily have become about Vitrine's ambitions, but never once did it come across that way. Instead, it was Vitrine's desires for the city and the way Azril and its people grew and blossomed that was the focus. I enjoyed getting to know Azril's various faces over time, both the good and the bad.

Vitrine and her siblings are called a demon and the beings who destroy Azril are called angels, but we never really get the distinction between the two. Both have powers, though the angels seem more remote and cold compared to the demons, who clearly have passions. The angels burned a city and all its, and Vitrine helped build it up again, but Vitrine's angel is more distressed by murder than she, who sees it as part of the natural cycle. Demons and angels do seem to have some natural repellant to one another, as it's mentioned more than once that there's a stinging or burning sensation if one touches the other.

Now, despite Vitrine's love for her city and her seeming care and understanding toward humans, she can be vicious. She knows every occupant of Azril and their ancestors, grieves them deeply once they're gone, but she curses one of the angels who destroyed Azril, thus casting him forevermore from his homeland, and for a very, very long time that rage of hers is immutable. She shows it in terrible ways too, striving to find something that makes her feel better about what occurred...but her grief is also immutable for just as long. The two go hand in hand, and I liked the dynamic of seeing those two emotions in conjunction with one another.

The angel is a little harder to pinpoint. For one, he's not the main character, though he is in most of the story. But he's also slower to exhibit deep emotion. As the story progresses, feelings seem to become more accessible to him and it's clear he develops attachments. Interestingly, one of those attachments is to Vitrine, whom he can't seem to help but care for.

As the story progresses, the two enter into a kind of neutral existence that develops into one of friendship. They clear Azril of the rubble and slowly grow it back into a city of world renowned. Vitrine, though angry at first that the occupants are not 'her' Azril's occupants, comes to love the newcomers. And the angel, interestingly enough, comes to love humans as well. Like Vitrine, he has some he favors over others, and those are the ones he worries about and protects in particular.

I say in the 'recommended' byline that this is enemies to lovers. And it is. But it's not a romance. Vitrine and the angel do not kiss and forgive. That's not who they are, and the love they have for one another is different than that. They spend centuries together, watch the new Azril rise and fill with people and change. They work in conjunction to guide it and protect it, and over time they come to guide and protect one another as well. By the end their love for one another is clear, but romantic the story is not.

Overall I enjoyed this book and loved the lyrical writing. While it's from Vitrine's POV, I would venture to say Azril is the main character of the story. I definitely recommend if you're looking for a good read about love and grief and time.

First, thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have never read anything by Nghi Vo before, but I've heard good things. When this came up on NetGalley, I figured it was a good opportunity to try her work.

This short novel deals with history, change, and grief in unique ways, as a demon watches as "her" city is destroyed by angels, and then tries to help it rise again. The story is lyrical and atmospheric, and some of the writing is downright lovely. I will warn, however, that this novel is largely about creating impressions and inciting emotion. If you're looking for straightforward answers and explanations, you will not get those. If, for example, you want to know things like why exactly the angels destroyed the city and what exactly angels and demons are in this version of the world, you're going to be disappointed. That was fine with me; you can tell immediately that this is not going to be that kind of book, and you can either roll with that, or you can't. I rolled with it.

The story traces various vignettes of the demon's experiences in the city over the years, as well as the lives of some of the citizens who have caught her attention throughout the generations. It worked very well with a novel this length. In a longer book, it could have gotten old after a while, but here I felt it was very successful. This is also the story of her relationship with one of the angels who destroys the city and then winds up stuck with her. However, the description of the book categorizes this as "a love story," and I see a "romance" tag on it on Goodreads. If you go into this thinking you're getting some sort of Hallmark/rom-com love story, you are going to wind up traumatized. I would never describe this book as a love story or romance. I am not someone who reads or likes many romance novels, and the people I know that are big romance fans are not people who I would think of as the target audience for this book. This is not some "meet cute" or Good Omens quasi comedy. The relationship between the two characters is incredibly complicated, and even downright abusive and hateful at times. Imagine if someone destroyed your hometown and everyone in it, and then you had to live in close contact with them for generations. That's the situation that happens here.

I really enjoyed that both the angel and demon felt genuinely otherworldly and alien, as you would expect such entities to be if they were real. They aren't, like in so many stories, just glossed over versions of "good" and "bad" people. Both are capable of great love and great destruction. I am also a fan of the fact that the demon doesn't wind up as being basically good with a veneer of mischief in the end. This so often happens in stories where a supposedly evil character is the protagonist, but over time we see they're just misunderstood. Nope, not here. The demon does some awful stuff and doesn't care, because she's a demon and that's what she does. Likewise, the angel does some awful stuff, and doesn't care, because he's and angel and that's what he does. This really helped sell the characters for me. They also don't think of love, grief, loss, etc. in the same way humans would, which again, feels realistic if such entities existed.

Overall, I thought this was a unique, well-written book that told a story in ways I haven't seen before. It has convinced me to check out more of the author's work. If you are interested in a serious, dark story that takes place over generations and deals with grief and rebuilding in the wake of tragedy, this is a good pick.

The City in Glass describes the love a demon, Vitrine, has for a city she nurtured and grew. It also explores her relationship with an angel, who is both her enemy and friend, throughout hundreds of years.

This story seemed introspective, focusing on the thoughts and goals of the main character. It interested me because classically, we expect demons to just do evil, but Vitrine is a much more complex character than that, one who collects attributes for her city to nourish it. I enjoyed reading about the development of her relationship to the angel, who again isn’t an angel in the typical sense that we think of.

I thought this book was interestingly creative, and loved how it spanned hundreds of years.

I enjoyed this book! The worldbuilding was especially compelling. I was drawn into the world and found it hard to put the back down.

I really enjoyed reading this fantasy book. The worldbuilding was great and I also loved the characters in this book. They were easy to follow, the plot was good and interesting and I liked the weiting style of the author as well. I can only recommend reading this book!

"The City in Glass" is my first Nghi Vo - horrific, I know! I own one of her other books and I keep meaning to read it. So I went into "The City of Glass" with no preconceived notions, other than this was a tale of a demon and an angel and a destroyed city.

So first thing: the writing here is gorgeous. Sometimes a little too purple for me, but for every sentence I think is too much, there's a beautiful turn of phrase that lands so lightly on its meaning. This is very much "all vibes, no plot" in the vein of something like "This Is How You Lose the Time War", which people may enjoy or not depending upon their tolerance for very little worldbuilding. I like motives. I like knowing why people act the way they do. It was wholly absent here, the titular city destroyed within the opening pages by angels because... why? We never found out. It just needed to be destroyed, and so it was. Why are the demon and angel so immediately close? It needed to happen. And oh, what beautiful sentences to describe what they do!

But alas, I cannot feast on vibes alone. This one was about 200 pages and felt long.

<i>First, a thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an eARC of this book.</i>

WOW. Stunning. Vo has done it again.

I will always insta-read anything she writes now, as she has one of the most hauntingly beautiful writing styles I have ever read, (to quote one of my favorite Tiktokers) point blank period.

I could wax poetic about all the things I loved about this book, but what I will really hone in on is that this book, as well as being a story, is a work of art to me. This is the type of prose I crave. This is a reading <i>experience</i>, not just entertainment.

Something I also really enjoyed about this book is that the main characters are a demon, an angel, and an entire city - so while there are times when you can relate to the characters, overall they don’t always behave in the way that you or I would - which <i>works</i>, because part of the point is that the straddle the line between the human and the otherworldly. There are times when we can relate, see something of us in them, and other times - they are apart and terrifying. And I <b>love it.</b>

This is such a beautiful book and I am now kicking myself because it doesn’t release for SO MANY MONTHS so who am I gonna talk to about this and proselytize to about this book!?

Absolutely loved this, one of my favorites reads of the year (and I’m sitting at 100-something so far).

Fabulous world building, a unique concept, dealing with grief and reconciling past and present, this was a fantastic standalone fantasy with so much depth. I was blown away. This is the first book I’ve read from this author but I was not disappointed. A great fantasy introduction for those new to the genre with nuance and intrigue that will appeal to seasoned fantasy readers as well

I had not read any other books by this author, but this was such a great book. I am hoping to track down more of Vo's books to read soon. This book does remind me a lot of Good Omens, with demons and angels, and humans caught in between, only in this book a demon has been caring for a vibrant city for centuries when a group of angels show up to visit judgement on the city and destroy it completely. In the aftermath of their attack, one angel is wounded in a way that connects it to the city as the demon begins to rebuild from the rubble.

Throughout the novella we see Vitrine, a demon, rebuild a city torn down by angels and through her we experience the lore incorporated for the generations of people who lived and died in the city.

The early chapters were whimsically violent then moves to a slower pace in the middle where interesting plot pieces were few and far between. (Reminiscent of Circe by Madeline Miller in terms of pacing, setting, and trait of the main character). What was particularly interesting about this book is the setting is the character (she is the constant with little development) and the character is the setting (ever growing and changing)

I don’t know where this author has been all my life because her prose were so angelic that it broke the writing style scale: it had rhythm, varying vocabulary, show don’t tell imagery, easy to follow dialogue and narration, and it incorporated so many poetic elements that weren’t just a simple use of similes. (Juxtaposition, allusions, anaphoras, symbolism, assonance, personification)

The purpose of this story was to reveal themes of grief, resurrection, and love not just for people but for life. Vitrine teaches us to hold on to things that are worthwhile because permanence is non existent.

However there were questions I never got answers to and for a long time I didn’t know where this narrative going. I personally wasn’t satisfied with how this concluded.

Things I wish it had:

There was no rationale for the causation of destruction of the city. My biggest question is WHY and it never got answered.

Why this angel cares deeply for this demon(?) also never got answered. I do like the juxtapositioning of the angel and demon where opposites seem to attract but this romantic subplot is very one-sided. Vitrine obviously cares more for her city than the angel.

The Angel- I wanted a bigger character arc. He is the only other immortal character in this story and yet over the millennia that I saw him there was very little character development.