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The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin

When a mysterious force threatens to unmake New York, the city’s spirit awakens in living avatars—ordinary people who embody its five boroughs. As they scramble to unite, they face cosmic adversaries and very human fault lines. The City We Became is a bold, big-hearted urban fantasy that turns the city itself into a heroic battleground.

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In The City We Became, did you enjoy ...

... a modern city with living personifications, street-level magic, and civic stakes?

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch

If you loved how Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronca, Padmini, and even Staten Island embodied their boroughs while battling the Woman in White’s tendrils, you’ll click with Peter Grant’s London, where river gods like Mama Thames rule neighborhoods and the Tube itself can turn haunted. The tone blends snark and wonder as Peter learns policing and magic side by side—much like Manny discovering what it means to be a city’s avatar while chasing down reality-warping threats.

... a tight, problem-solving ensemble joining legal sorcery with urban gods?

Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone

If the way Manny, Brooklyn, Bronca, and Padmini assembled their mismatched skills to defend New York thrilled you—math-fueled reality hacks, museum showdowns, borough pride—then you’ll love Tara Abernathy teaming up with her mentor Elayne Kevarian and the chain‑smoking priest Abelard to investigate a dead city‑god. The crew navigates courtroom duels, corporate cults, and urban divinities with the same kinetic, team‑based energy that powered the borough avatars’ battles against the Woman in White.

... sharp, culturally rooted monster-hunting in a contemporary setting with Indigenous leads?

Trail Of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

If Bronca’s Lenape perspective, Padmini’s immigrant‑math magic, and the book’s celebration of borough identities resonated with you, dive into Maggie Hoskie’s hunt across Dinétah. With medicine‑clan powers, a trickster god who meddles like a chaotic curator, and a community shaped by tradition and survival, it channels the same culturally grounded power that helped the avatars stand their ground against the Woman in White’s invasive ‘colonizer’ magic.

... art-powered magic, Brooklyn vibes, and a crew that becomes your family?

Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older

If you enjoyed how Brooklyn Thomason brought music, politics, and borough pride to the fight—and how the avatars became a family under pressure—you’ll feel right at home with Sierra Santiago. Her graffiti awakens spirits, her friends rally around her, and a predatory outsider tries to steal their heritage—mirroring the way the avatars push back against the Woman in White’s gentrifying, reality‑warping threat. It’s vibrant, fast, and full of found‑crew heart.

... a city’s fight against cultural erasure, with gods, occupiers, and explosive politics?

City Of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett

If the allegory of gentrification and invasive power in the Woman in White—plus Bronca’s museum battles over who gets to define a city—hooked you, this delivers. Spy‑scholar Shara Komayd arrives in Bulikov, a once‑divine city now under foreign occupation, to untangle an assassination and suppressed miracles. The clash over history, identity, and who owns a place’s soul echoes the borough avatars’ struggle to keep New York from being overwritten.

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