I was thrilled to dive into my first Nghi Vo novel! The concept and premise of the story are truly intriguing and creative. However, I found it challenging to connect with the writing style. At times, I felt overwhelmed by the dense prose, which made it difficult for me to fully engage with the storyline. While this book didn’t resonate with me personally, I appreciate the unique vision and creativity behind it.

*Thank you to NetGalley, Nghi Vo, and Macmillan Audio for providing me with the audiobook to review. As always, all thoughts are my own.*

Such a weird little perfect novella from Nighi Vo. It reminds me a little but of The Lovely War in plot but everything was succinct and perfect

Vetrine, a demon, has chosen her city: Azril. She loves it like a child, has shaped it and played with it and set out to record all its minute beautiful details. Azril is her home. And then, one day, the angels come, rain down their holy fury, and level her city. She sets out to rebuild and repair it. As the angels left, she cursed one by putting part of her essence in him, and as the decades pass, he also becomes involved in her process of remaking Azril, eventually bringing her people. It's a love story of many forms, it's a history of a city, and it's an epic tale of grief.
I really enjoyed this book. I liked how inhuman the characters were, given that they were a demon and an angel. Time passed completely differently. The setting was really interesting. Azril felt like a real place, in both its iterations. Vetrine was a delightful main character, capricious and ridiculous and surprisingly lovable for a demon. This book was slow and contemplative, and not too many truly exciting things happened (for example, the threat that comes for the city was the last like, 45 minutes of the audiobook), and you know what? That's fine. It was very well written and it was still a really good book.

Vitrine is a demon with a city. Until that city is burned to ground by angels. Vitrine must grieve and eventually rebuild her city, while dealing with the presence of the angel she cursed.

It's a book about grieving and rebuilding. It's beautiful and strange, but I really enjoyed it.

I thought the narrator did a wonderful job bringing Vitrine's voice to life.

Nghi Vo’s sci-fi fantasy epic reminds of Paradise Lost and Rushdie’s Victory City. A beautifully written story about life and death, beginnings and endings, creation and destruction, myth and history, angels and devils, and the spiritual and the corporeal.

This book takes the concept of world building and turns it into a gripping, thought provoking novel. Readers might regard the story’s events as a metaphor the the role of responsibilities of an author.

Nghi Vo's excellent writing truly comes to the life with the narration of Susan Dalian who brings the demon Vitrine to life with her sharp edges and tender hearts. At points, the narration was so brimming with emotion that it brought me to tears. Highly recommended.

THE CITY IN GLASS by @nghivowriting is something I would describe as a cozy, contemplative read. Thank you to the author, @netgalley and the publisher, @tordotcompub for the audio-ARC.

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Vitrine has been shaping the lives of the citizens of Azril for generations as it's demon overlord until one day an angel comes and strikes the city down leaving Vitrine devastated and lonely. She curses the angel to stay in the city and walk among the rubble. Can the two find a way to rebuild Azril in a new image?

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I love everything Vo writes because gorgeous prose and thoughtful plotting are always present. That being said, this was probably not one of my favorites of theirs. It is slow-paced but very purposeful. There is not as much action as there is philosophy. There is a heavy romance-laden theme. If all these things sound good to you, you should give this one a try! It came out in October so is on shelves now!

I thought this was very good and I will have to add this to the shop shelves. Thank you for the chance for us to review.

This story centers around a demon named Mitrine who adopts a city and the angel who destroys it. While there isn't a lot of action, this short novella is so beautifully written. Each phrase feels so well-placed and purposeful. There is not an ounce of unnecessary description. I loved listening to Vo's description of this fantastic world, and I would have read a much longer book about these characters because they were utterly mesmerizing really. However, I think this small package is kind of perfect as it is. The audio is perfectly suited to the story- restrained but exact.
I cannot wait to read more by this author!

Nghi Vo does not miss. This is probably going to be my favorite read of the year. I have not stopped talking about it to everyone that is near.
It's so achingly beautiful. Vitrine and Azril are everything to be currently.
Wonderful narration <3

Actual Rating 1.5

This was not at all what I expected it to be. Based on the premise, I was sure I’d love this. But the way the author chose to write and tell this story just didn’t work for me. It is painfully overwritten, to the point where pages would pass, and I’d wonder what the point of those paragraphs were supposed to be. There really wasn’t a plot, and almost nothing really happened. When things did happen, it was told passively so it never felt engaging. This was essentially written like a literary fiction, which hindered the power that this story could have had.

As for the characters, it was difficult to dig them out from the mountain of words they were hidden behind. There were brief moments when the story was strong and I found myself engaged, but they quickly disappeared as well. The romance could have been compelling if the characters had had any development, but it also fell by the wayside.

If you’re looking for a tedious fantasy written like literary fiction that feels twice as long as it is, then you’ll probably enjoy this. I am an outlier on this, so take my opinions with a grain of salt. My thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for allowing me to read this work. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an ARC of this audiobook for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Truly one of the most unique books I’ve ever read, and I mean that in a positive way! It is a short but hauntingly beautiful read. I adored how Azril was a character in its own right, and watching its rebirth with Vitrine and the angel was an incredible and unique experience.

Vitrine and the angel’s relationship was perfectly ethereal, cruel, shattering, delicate, and pristine all at once. How Nghi Vo created such depth of character in a novella should be STUDIED.

All to say, this is a MASTERPIECE and you should definitely read it.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an advanced listening copy in exchange for an honest review!!

I really loved The City in Glass, though I suppose I’m not entirely sure who else will. The prose is lovely and I loved the vibes and atmosphere, and I thought that the title and the writing style lended themselves well to what Vo was trying to accomplish, because so much of it felt like I was being held at arm’s length, or that I was peering through a glass encasing. And, also, I really enjoyed that the immortal beings did feel some level of detachment. I’m impressed with how Vo managed to tell a story of such a large scale in so few pages, but it worked well for me. I think this will be a particularly challenging read if, as a reader, you prefer something with a strong plot or you like to get into the weeds of world building. There’s a sort of literary quality to this, and I feel like you need to either typically like vibes-based books or be in the mood for one to have the most success with reading this.

I liked the audio and found it easy to listen to, but at the same time I found it a little easy for my attention to stray. Still, Susan Dalian’s narration does an excellent job with adding emotion to the story.

This speculative fantasy was beautifully written and felt like a fever dream, much like Nghi Vo’s Singing Hills novellas. It explores themes of identity, belonging, grief, and the delicate beauty of human existence. The lyrical prose crafted a unique, poetic, and deeply moving narrative that enriched the entire experience for me.

Beautifully written with a non-linear timelines. The writing is quite poetic. The love between the Angel and the Demon is so beautiful... I definitely wanted the story to be a bit longer, but it's Vo's writing is impactful (as usual).

This was an absolutely beautifully written story. I only wish I would have read it first. I received a copy of the audiobook early through NetGalley (also thanks to the publisher). The narration from Susan Dalian was as beautiful as the words that Nghi Vo wrote. However, this story was particularly difficult to keep track of through audio. I am sure that reading the book and seeing the formatting would have helped me understand the story better. The audiobook format did not take away from the emotions this story brought up. The City in Glass makes you rethink what it means to learn and grow. The absolute grief and happiness and love I felt while listening to this book is like nothing I’ve felt before! Nghi Vo pulls you in with their words and keeps you hooked with the dramatic storyline. It’s a tale of Demons and Angels like you’ve never read before!

This was difficult to get into. I stopped and started and tried again for months, in both print and audio formats. Once I got passed the 30% mark, however, it gripped me enough to let me finish and I read the rest in a single afternoon.

The book is hard to describe. It's beautiful and terrible and haunting and strange, and Vitrine and the Angel are alternately relatable and unknowable. The language and the way the story is told are gorgeous, and the words flow like honey from the narrator's tongue. It's fascinating and unsettling and weirdly compelling.

The audiobook is phenomenally performed and I love it more for having listened to it. The narrator really brings Vitrine to life in all her strangeness and fierce love for her city.

It's the story of a city over centuries, as it rises and falls and rises again, guided and nurtured by Vitrine, a demon who loves it fiercely, and the Angel who doesn't really know how to love but tries anyway. The years flow past in fits and starts and characters come and go and age and die, only for their descendants to take up the tale.

The ending was unexpected and strange and I'm not sure how I feel about it, other than that it was haunting.

It reminds me most of Piranesi, and a little of How you Lose the Time War, and of course of Nghi Vo's other works.

It's the sort of book that leaves you questioning what it was all about and at the same time strangely moved by it and feeling subtly changed for having read it.

*Thanks to tordotcom and Macmillan Audio for providing an early copy for review.

This was a lovely, quick audiobook that kept me company while doing a lot of international travel prep (aka having a lot of anxiety). I had a nice time, but I do feel (once again) that I'd like to revisit this story when I'm able to devote more attention to it because I feel like I missed a lot of details. But I really loved Vitrine, and the poetic writing style worked well for me. The pacing may have been a little slow at times and a little fast at others, but overall, I enjoyed seeing the long-term, immortal's-eye view of Azril's past and present. I'd absolutely recommend this if you like other work from Vo!

I'm not quite sure what I just listened to. Was it beautiful, yes. Was it poetic, yes. But, what was it? I liked the love story between demon and angel and demon and city. I liked the magic. But I wish the plot had a flow to it, because I could not for the life of me get into this story, despite really wanting to. The narration was great, though.

This is a short, meditative novel about a demon in love with a city. She's its patron until one day a gang of angels arrives and destroys it. Over the next 300 years, she nurtures the new civilization that grows in its place. Oh, and one of those angels is cursed (?) to stay on earth, not to re-enter heaven. He also falls in love with the city, and perhaps with the demon, too...

This isn't a romance, although maybe it's a love story between two immortal beings and a place.

I listened to the audio of this one, but it is very slow moving and I had to read the first couple of chapters with my eyes before I could settle into the audio. I think this is a function of the prose, rather than the narrator.

This objective review is based on a complimentary copy of the novel.