If the t-shirt ‘I ❤️ NYC’ were a book. The premise was really cool, and I liked how elaborate the literal worldbuilding was, even if some of the descriptions could be hard to follow. The fight scenes were really unique (like literally throwing money at your problem???) was so cool.

Unfortunately, I think the pacing was too slow. The chapters are long, and take soooooo long to get to the actual plot. The characters feel like exaggerated stereotypes rather than 3 dimensional people, and I had a hard time connecting to any of them because they spent so much time talking about being ‘a city’ rather than a fully realized character. The POVs were a little overwhelming to switch between, yet we only focus on a couple perspectives. I wish we either rotated evenly between POVs, or cut down to 3 perspectives.

I wish this had been written as a stage play or musical, because I think it would’ve played to the story’s strengths so much better. I think the concept was interesting, but the execution was really lacking.

For being a book where the plot is a guy helping Harriet Tubman write an album to connect to the folks of today, I felt very disconnected from all the characters. The titular Harriet Tubman is probably the most fleshed out and interesting, but she’s on the periphery of so much of the book she feels like she’s being pushed away by the narrative. The other characters are flat with a single character trait (if they have a distinct trait at all), and get a chapter where they give Darnell their backstory in a stilted and unnatural way that reminded me of prerecorded speeches you’d find in a history museum wax figured. Darnell had the least development, and his character made no sense. His tantrums were distracting, and broke the flow of the story. Despite his underdeveloped personality, all of the other characters seem to dedicate inordinate amounts of time and energy to making Darnell feel special or educated.

The book was mostly dialogue, but few of the characters had unique voices to distinguish themselves. The pacing was breakneck, and I found myself skimming because I didn’t like the plain writing style. Multiple times, Darnell says “this sound like an after school special” when folks give soliloquies in the book, but this reads like a series of Impressive Quotes and Takes barely strung together by prose or plot. I think the book needed at least 100 more pages to fill out everything.

I’ve heard the audiobook is a better experience, and I would absolutely see this story reimagined as a musical.