This book was truly something else, the way I was immediately immersed in this world, the writing and the characters was incredible. Nghi Vo’s prose is simply just beautiful. This short story follows Vitrine, a demon who at her core, feels very deeply for her city. We are taken on a journey of her grief, and sense of despair after its gets destroyed by the angels.
As a person that really enjoys character driven stories, this was a perfect read for me. There were a lot of chapters of us going through Vitrines memories of the city, her trying to rebuild it and seeing her anger towards those who demolished it. I felt like I really understood her and all the emotions she was going through. It’s difficult to describe more, and I think it’s best to go in as blind as possible so, I will stop here, but wow… I fell in love with this story and its characters completely (It’s definitely one that I think I will appreciate even more on a reread).

Thank you Tordotcom and Netgally for the eARC.

I have truly adored everything I’ve read by Nghi Vo. She outdoes herself on the regular in the Singing Hills series. Banger after banger, frankly. So it is with the deepest sadness that I report that this one just didn’t quite do it for me. Look, the writing is lovely, as always. I just didn’t feel any pull to the characters or the actual story, which is truly sad for me. But! Please understand, I am definitely in the minority, as the Goodreads reviews are pretty strong for this one so far. And like- I’d read Nghi Vo’s shopping list, so it wasn’t a waste of time, it’s just… well, her shopping list would have probably inspired me to make some fun meals or something.

I even liked the concept and the ideas, it just almost felt like too much pretty prose and not enough substance, but I can also admit that I just may not have totally “gotten” it, since symbolism can be lost on me sometimes. That is to say, if you like Nghi Vo (which I unequivocally do) and also like more symbolic, understated stories (which I am less a fan of), this could very well be for you!

Bottom Line: I’m still here for any and all of Vo’s work and gorgeous writing, but this one just didn’t quite hit for me.

I do not think my thoughts can do this novella justice as it is so lyrical and well written that it deserves better than my words. There is a super long slow burn enemies to lovers story at the core of this with an angel and a demon that ends up truly defining devotion. Vitrine is a demon that adopted a city as her own and cared for it as her own. So when an angel came to destroy it, of course she was angry. As time wears on and she works to rebuild it, sometimes with the help of said devastating angel, she realizes how empty the world feels when the angel is absent and while they constantly get at each other and she may banish him for a bit or take his wings (oops), they find themselves drawn back to each other over and over again.

“You couldn’t portion love out in spoons or cups or slices. You could only let it grow nad nurture it if you could, cut it down if you had to.”

This story is a work of art, full of pain, love, grief, and so much more. I loved how beautiful the ending was.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫.

Thank you to @tordotcompub for my ARC. All thoughts are my own.

Thank you to Tor for an eARC and finished copy of this!

4.5 stars

This was written beautifully with so many amazing quotes!! I just wish I was a little bit more connected to the characters and that we had some more worldbuilding but other than that I still LOVED this so much!!

This is a book about love. The deep and unyielding love a Vitrine has for her city, the affectionate and fond love she has for its people, and the mingled passion that is hate and love together she feels for the angel she has trapped on Earth. It’s not a book with a focused plot, captivating characters, or sermonizing on good versus evil. For all that Vitrine is a demon, she isn’t a biblical demon, or a demon out of pop culture.

Vitrine is a force of nature, purpose given shape. Her purpose, her “heart,” as it were, takes the form of a book in which she write memories of Azril, the names of the people who caught her eye, the design of streets and shops. From flowers and bees, to merchant ships and glassblowers, so long as they were part of Azril, Vitrine has loved them.

And then the angels came and took Azril away. Buildings destroyed, people dead, animals and plants birds and insects … gone. Everything she loved, everything she is, was and will be gone. And so Vitrine begins again, digging through rubble with her own hands, coaxing a river to flow back in its original path. She digs at weeds, encourages trees to grow and winds to scour away dust and ash. But Vitrine is not alone. One angel looked back at the destruction he had made and Vitrine cursed him. Now he, like her, wanders the world, heartless, soulless, and caught inexorably in Vitrine’s purpose.

She will remake Azril. She will live again.

I love Nghi Vo’s writing. It’s poetic, it’s elegant, it’s sinuous and flowing and, when it hits, it hits hard. Here, it feels quieter and more mournful. It isn’t about the big moments, but the small ones. This isn’t a book focused on character arcs and growth, even though it is, ostensibly, told through Vitrine’s eyes. Instead, it’s just a story about a city. A city that fell, and clawed its way back up, rising from the ashes not like a phoenix to spread its wings, but like a child, crawling, climbing to its knees before slowly, unsteadily finding it’s feet. Staggering, tottering, from walking to running to joy and glory … only to fall again. Because cities fall.

If you love world building and history, you’ll have a good time with this book. It isn’t about the army at the gates or surviving the plague or building a library; it’s about how each of those things shapes a city. And how the city is shaped by the people who love it. There is so much subtle world building and mythologizing as we watch Azril go from a decadent and glorious moment to a ruin, from the ruin to a ghost, and then reborn to something living again. Through Vitrine’s eyes, as she compares the current Azril, the thing she is making now, to the ghost of what it was before, we get history and stories about culture. And in seeing the new people come to Azril, born to it, we see different cultures with their own passions, hopes, and dreams come together to shape something new. It’s an interesting book, and I love it, but I can see how this might not be to everyone’s taste.

This is also a book that does immortality right. Vitrine isn’t mortal, has never been mortal. She watches generations come and go. She stands still for months, glances up and years have passed, and yet … as we see with the angel, who turns his immortal focus onto a young man for a year’s time, it’s exhausting to have to be present. To have to be aware, to narrow their attention to one living thing, rather than to allow themselves to see the entirety before them.

Vitrine feels immortal, ageless, and alien. Her love is generous and vast. From a bee to a seed to stones in the ground, and even, occasionally, people. But only so long as it’s Azril. The people in her city she loves; the people who leave it, she remembers. And to see how — as she has made Azril her heart, so too Azril has made her its.

And what of the angel? Vitrine doesn’t care. If he’s not tugging at her sleeves for attention, he’s not worth the notice. And when he’s not in her city, she thinks no more of him … but every year that passes, as she has cursed him, so too has she cursed herself. It isn’t exactly romance; it isn’t exactly not. And the resolution of what’s between them, the shape of what they are, what they are not, and what they will be … well, I liked it.

Thank you to the published and NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book.
A tiny book full of stories: recounted by a demon, ensared with a city she built out of love, or perhaps hunger, or something else, because Vitrine is chaos and her motives are not to be questioned. No whys in how Vitrine acts, so much sorrow when, instead, a group of angels keeps the promise of their nature and wipes away the work of Vitrine, who had cherished and encouraged the freedom that the Heavens so much despise.
The book follows the reconstruction of Azril by one desperate but strong willed Vitrine, and the effects of the curse she put inside one of the angels who destroyed her most prized possessions. She recounts the lives of those she lost, never binding them but quietly overlooking their fate, while the angel cannot seem to be away from her, due to the curse. Azril will come back to life, but different, not as Vitrine expected, and something else of unexpected nature will stir the chaos in her.
Such a good little book. Loved how it depicts non human characters by not binding them to any representation that’s already codified, making it so that readers of all faiths of none can imagine their forms and course of action. Love is the real engine of this book, in the twisted way Vitrine feels it, and it was such a pleasure to read her tales.

i love nghi vo, but i've always disliked these sort of star-crossed ill-fated romances because they feel instalovey to me. if the stakes are this high there isn't going to be like banter to be charmed by, and in fact this was mostly biting and sky fighting and throwing bits of rotten corpses at each other.

until this became a love letter to a fictional city.

i still didn't love our characters (who felt more like figures than people) or their relationship (you can keep being frenemies creating a culture together as far as i'm concerned), but i love the strange short fantastical books nghi vo keeps coming up with.

The City in Glass is my first by Nghi Vo. It won't be my last. The prose was stunning. The story was incredibly thematic and atmospheric. There is no doubt that Vo can write. I loved the characters. However, for a novella that is roughly 215 pages, it felt overly long. As the story continued, my interest waned. It felt very lit fic, and that is not a genre I love. If you loved This is How You Lose the Time War, I think you will love this. Otherwise, mileage may vary.

Thank you to NetGalley, Tor Publishing, and Macmillan Audio for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is an incredible book. Beautifully written, atmospheric, and full of life. We watch a city get destroyed and sit in the aftermath of that destruction. We see a lonely creature find comfort in another who is so different yet so similar to herself as she struggles to rebuild and honor her grief. We see humans do human things--they live, they die, they make mistakes, start wars, and comfort one another. Nghi Vo is an amazing author and I will forever continue to read her work. If you've ever wanted to read a love letter to a city, this is your book.


I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Thank you Tor Publishing for the opportunity to read this arc!

Nghi Vo inevitably writes sentences that haunt the hollow recesses of my brain long after I have finished reading them. While I enjoy her writing, this novella was not for me. I am actually heartbroken that I didn’t love this. I did enjoy the last few chapters, so I may still try the audio version because I sometimes worry that I’m losing my ability to love a book traditionally.

This isn’t your typical burning with passion romance more one with two beings who each carry a piece of the other inside them. These two see the world and time differently, and their romance is more of an extreme slow burn. It’s not your typical I cannot stop reading this book give me it all type of read but it was a beautiful sit with you type of book.

Three words to describe this book: melancholy, lyrical & beautiful.

City in Glass by Nghi Vo
Dark fantasy/Literary Fiction

The story of a demon coming to terms with the devastation of a city she has loved, and facing the one responsible for its destruction.

Sometimes a book just really captures your heart and your imagination. I loved so many things about this-
- enemies to lovers
- lyrical prose
- setting as a character
- fascinating world building

It’s definitely a vibes over plot kind of book and was reminiscent to me of This is How You Lose the Time War and was actually similar in length also. If you enjoy character-driven stories or learning about unique and interesting worlds, this probably is a great pick for you.

Thank you Tor/Forge for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I finished this a few days ago and it's taken me a few days to fully solidify how I felt about this book. Overall, I think the idea is lovely - it's a character study of a city in a way, and really lingers on the exploration of grief. Overall it's very melancholic in tone, but I think it suits the book.
My issue is that while the book is about healing from grief, I never really felt the grief the characters were experiencing myself. I really enjoyed the beautiful prose and the snippets from the characters lives over the centuries, but alas I never got emotionally attached enough to shed a tear. I'm gonna round the rating up to a 4, but its honestly more of a 3.5. Still, interesting little novella that I'm sure will hit many more than it did me!

(4.5/5 stars)

The City in Glass by Nghi Vo is a lyrical mega slow-burn literary fantasy romance between an angel and demon.

I will literally read anything that Nghi Vo writes. I just love her prose, especially when I'm reading it in audiobook form. This standalone novella is narrated by Susan Dalian, and I really enjoyed listening to her read.

Centuries pass in the city of Azril, from its beginnings to its deaths, and when the cycle begins anew. I really enjoyed segments when the demon Vitrine interacts with citizens, and my absolute favorite part was when she hired an artist for decades.

This was a wonderful exploration of grief for me. As is typical in Vo's works, there is casual queerness in abundance. At one point the angel and demon end up parenting a transgender child (who also appears to be a disaster bisexual).

CW: violence, death

*Thank you to NetGalley & Tor Publishing Group for sending me a digital copy to review*

This is probably the most unique story I’ve ever read. A demon, an Angel, and the rise and fall of a city that spans centuries if not millennia.

The demon Vitrine loves the city of Azril and has influenced and shaped it for generations. Then, the angels come and the Azril that Vitrine knows ceases to exist. She curses one of the angels and as a result, he is bound by her anger and becomes just as invested in the city as she is.

I really loved the concept of this story, seeing the destruction and the building of a city through the eyes of an immortal demon who loves the city and its people. I thought the idea of Vitrine’s book that she keeps her memories of the people of the city was a cool bit of imagery - she keeps it in her chest which I guess could be an allegory of her heart.

The relationship between Vitrine and the Angel was interesting as well. Vitrine despises him for his actions and we see over the centuries her hatred of him slowly simmers. While Vitrine is more emotional the Angel is detached and pragmatic in his views of the destruction of the city, he’s only there at the beginning and the end and doesn’t witness the life in between.

While the story is interesting, I found it hard to get through. For me, it felt jumpy especially when Vitrine would all of a sudden start flying, and in my head, I’m picturing a human form but then later she would mention wings or something. Everything just didn’t flow for me and I found myself getting confused often.

What I enjoyed most about this book was the prose. This is a mood book for me. It felt like a great fall read for no other reason than the ambiance. While some of the prose was a bit much in some sections, there were lines of great beauty in this novella that were lovely to experience.

The aspects of this book that worked less for me all made sense to the story and the characters. As Vitrine builds this world for the reader in the beginning, I longed for a map of Azril and less of a movie-scene view of the people within it. Dipping in and out of people's lives reflects the lived experience Vitrine would have had in the citizens' lives, but without more time spent with them, I found them forgettable and inconsequential. It took me awhile to understand I didn't have to store these names in my head for later chapters. When Azril is destroyed by the gods, I hadn't bought into its importance enough yet and didn't feel much for the place or its inhabitants. I had questions about why and what Vitrine's connection was to this place, but without that development, it felt like an early plot moment that was going to develop. I also never felt a deep connection to Vitrine's character as her character development was mostly centered around her interests in Azril and nothing more. As a result, I found that even her outrage for the catastrophic violence inflicted upon the city by the gods wasn't enough to make me care more about its people.

I felt the way the connection between Vitrine and the god was explored was interesting and helped tie the story together from beginning, middle, and end. But as an anchor for the entire plot of the novel besides city destroyed, city rebuilt, grief, and loss, I just didn't find its centrality enough to engage me in all aspects of the book. I did, however, find it to be well developed and satisfying as a reader and thought it had a lovely message.

Thanks to TorDotCom for an eARC and Macmillan Audio for an advanced listening copy in exchange for an honest review!

I don't know how Nghi Vo wrote a novel about the history of the city of Azril across time and a love story at the same time in less than 250 pages. Nghi Vo cannot miss! We follow a demon named Vitrine create a city and nurture it to its full potential until a group of angels destroy it. She curses an angel to never return to where the other angels live. As time passes, we see Vitrine rebuild and grow to love this new version of her city. Vo's writing continues to be evocative and brilliant as we see Vitrine and this cursed unnamed angel change and grow. I found Vitrine's rage and grief quite sympathetic, but I had a hard time appreciating the angel's presence. Once I got to halfway through, I started to see how he foiled Vitrine so well. While he is prideful, he felt guilty for destroying Azril.

This is less so a novel with plot, but a character study between the demon and this angel (moreso the demon since this novel is in her perspective) and the history of this city across hundreds of years. I loved this book and will continue to read anything Nghi Vo publishes. Now excuse me as I go back to her previous novels, The Chosen and the Beautiful & Siren Queen.

Content warnings: death, grief, fire, blood, murder, violence, pandemic (plague), sexual content (minor), war

This book was magical. If you enjoy a "love letter to a place" style book, then this one is absolutely for you. It is a make believe place, but if you have ever loved a place with your entire being, then this book will absolutely resonate with you. Vo does such a beautiful job of weaving the lives of the people who live in Azril with the story of Vitrine and her nameless angel. It is a heartbreaking story of love and loss, and Vo's writing is absolutely stunning. Vo's newest work is not to be missed.

Thank you NetGalley and Tordotcom for this ARC Copy!

I was interested in the book form the moment that I saw the cover. I though it was going to a mythology story and it definitely read like mythology at times. Following a Demon and the city that she loves that gets destroyed by biblically accurate Angels, such an interesting concept. I enjoyed it for the most part but I also spent a lot of time confused, which may be a me problem. It felt like there were times that we would go back in the past with no warning, and suddenly there are characters that came out of nowhere. It was interesting and definitely worth the read, I just wish I walked away understanding what exactly I just read. Regardless, the writing is beautiful, and the characters are hauntingly strange.

Nghi Vo's The City in Glass evoked some very Neil Gaiman-esque feelings, but to me, it lacked any of the joy which made it an incredibly slow read for how short it was.

I will be honest in that I didn't like this book and it was a fight to finish it. It felt a lot like Good Omens if all of the humor had been sucked out of it. It wasn't poorly written, it just...it wasn't for me. I feel like this may have been a love letter to Nghi Vo's readers which I haven't been in the past. It almost seems not fair to grade it if that is the case...but again, someone like me will likely grab it by its description and end up disappointed.

I don't know what I was expecting from this book, but this wasn't it.