The City's Son (The Skyscraper Throne, #1)
Tom Pollock
Hidden under the surface of everyday London is a city of monsters and miracles, where wild train spirits stampede over the tracks and glass-skinned dancers with glowing veins light the streets. When a devastating betrayal drives her from her home, graffiti artist Beth Bradley stumbles into the secret city, where she finds Filius Viae, London's ragged crown prince, just when he needs someone most. An ancient enemy has returned to the darkness under St Paul's Cathedral, bent on reigniting a centuries-old war, and Beth and Fil find themselves in a desperate race through a bizarre urban wonderland, searching for a way to save the city they both love. The City's Son is the first book of The Skyscraper Throne: a story about family, friends and monsters, and how you can't always tell which is which.
No posts yet
Kick off the convo with a theory, question, musing, or update
Your rating:
I wasn’t entirely sure I knew what I was picking up when I requested this arc on NetGalley, but I’m really glad I did. Though I couldn’t bring myself to give it a full four stars, this is a very high three stars simply on the premise alone.
We meet our two heroes in this by the split POV chapters. There’s Filius, the prince of the city and son to the goddess of the city, and Beth, graffiti artist and tomboy trying to escape her life. Both characters are actually quite charming and easy to like. Filius (aka Urchin) is a boy trying to figure out how to become a man and live up to his absent mother’s name as he roams the streets of his city. Beth is a lost girl acting out and finding solace in her graffiti art. When they meet under extraordinary circumstances (you know the sort, that serendipitous right place and right time moment), they just click. Though yes, there is a budding romance, it’s mostly how Beth and Filius grow up and together that makes it work.
Among their exploits in trying to defeat Reach, the god of urban decay, are a menagerie of seriously interesting ideas. Street lamps that come to life. Mirrored images of people. Priests cursed into living their entire lives encased as statues. Filius’s adviser creates herself out of garbage. The ideas Tom Pollock came up with in creating the extraordinary inhabitants of the city are really fantastic. Even when the book lagged in places, I found myself so charmed by his ideas that I was compelled to keep reading to see what happened to all these wonderful characters.
There’s a ton of action. A ton of talking, plotting, and getting people to fight a war. Usually I’m totally okay with this, but at times it seemed like that got in the way of the journey the characters were taking. They eventually get to where they need to be, but a few things could have been pared down a little.
Also, for those who would care: there is violence. It’s not extremely graphic and usually that doesn’t bother me, but some of it is graphic enough that it made me wince as I read. These poor kids, man.
All in all, I enjoyed The City’s Son. I’d recommend it for anyone looking for something original in YA, on the (pretty literal) urban fantasy aspect alone.
0
© 2024 Pagebound