i love christmas novella!!!!! i’m in a festive mood now, this one can proudly stand in my annual christmas reread 🎄

dnf @45% okay what we are not going to do is tear down other women to elevate the fmc when i started to be disgusted when they were flirting i knew i had to dnf

dnf @13% FRIENDS LOOK AWAY 😣 i don’t like the writing style and how « perfect » everything is. the opening of the book start to strong imo. i just know i’m not going to love this book so i don’t want to waste my time and just shit on it when i bet it’s bringing a lot of joy to a lot of readers.

it was so meh 🤷🏽‍♀️ lots of repetition, very immature mc, to many pov switches. i love the fat rep and conversation but it stayed surface level

ugh so glad it’s over. sorry. this book was so slow and uneventful until the last act.

this book is dual pov of 2 sisters but i only liked Elara’s one, she was so compelling: sister of the chosen one that comes with a lot of insecurities, sent to the enemy dragon school, dream of serving her country, and proving herself.

this book is a Jamaican-inspired fantasy but i didn’t see it except in the characters' ethnicity and the prompt of the world-building (previously Crown Colony of the British Empire)

i could relate to a lot of the themes of racism, colonialism, language, and erasure as someone from an island who still reaps the consequences of French colonialism and slavery. that’s why i’m giving three stars.

this book wasn’t as good as the first one and a step down in terms of characters consistency. the plot and the ending was so unsatisfying. honestly i think i’m not giving it a lower rating because it’s sapphic, i love avatar, and i loved book 1.

i love mushroom based horror because you can’t reason with something like that, this little thing is just trying to survive. it’s not a five stars because i don’t like the romantic ending of it all, i think the book Their Vicious Game is a great example of how it should have ended.

a great book that unpack colonialism, slavery, man made environmental destruction and systemic resistance

I feel like I’ve been waiting for THIS book. Red City is everything I want in an adult fantasy, sharp, ambitious, and unapologetically layered. Marie Lu’s adult debut takes the premise of The Godfather and threads it through the lush, dangerous veins of The Magicians, creating a world where alchemy fuels ambition, and perfection itself becomes the most intoxicating drug.

Set in an alternate Los Angeles split between two rival alchemical syndicates, Red City is a story of power and transformation, both magical and deeply human. Alchemy here isn’t just magic; it’s the art of becoming more; more beautiful, more talented, more enough. The way Lu frames it with almost scientific precision makes the system feel terrifyingly plausible. Every transformation comes with a cost, and she never lets us forget that. The result is a bloody, gritty urban fantasy with a visceral edge I haven’t encountered in years.

What makes Red City so exceptional is how perfectly every element fits together. The worldbuilding is flawless, every character choice, every consequence, every shimmer of magic feels earned and logical within the world Lu creates. The alchemical warfare, the shimmering sand, the glittering towers of Angel City, it all feels alive and ruthlessly real.

At its heart, though, Red City is a story about grief and identity. Grief for a family fractured by ambition, for friendships outgrown, for lives unlived and choices never taken. Sam and Ari’s story broke me in the best way, childhood friends turned enemies on opposite sides of a growing war. Their reunion is full of tension and aching nostalgia, a slow burn steeped in loss and longing. I only wish there were more moments between them; every shared scene felt electric, heavy with everything left unsaid.

Lu also writes with a quiet brilliance about the immigrant experience; the guilt, the loss, the unspoken sacrifices. Sam’s relationship with her single immigrant mother is raw and incredibly real; you can feel both her frustration and her love, her yearning to be seen alongside the weight of unacknowledged sacrifice. Ari’s storyline hit just as hard: the grief of cultural erasure, the slow loss of language and identity as assimilation becomes survival. Few fantasies touch on this kind of mourning, the kind that comes from forgetting where you came from, and Lu captures it beautifully.

Red City reminded me of Jade City by Fonda Lee, One for My Enemy by Olivie Blake, and Babel by R.F. Kuang, but it stands entirely on its own. It’s bloody and ambitious, intelligent and tender, and every line hums with purpose. I was completely mesmerized by the fight sequences, the moral complexity, and the way Lu dares to ask what it costs to become the best version of yourself.

I want to buy copies for all my friends and make them read it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

⋆｡‧˚ʚ pre-read ɞ˚‧｡⋆

i love this author so much! i can’t wait to fall in love with her adult debut

dnf @52% the historical context and what I’m learning was interesting but otherwise everything else was so aggravatingly average

⋆˚࿔ pre read 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

« That was but a prelude where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people as well. »

i never read about the live of trans people during the WWII and the fact that their experience (specifically) during this era never crossed my mind say that i lack education on the matter. this book is a good first step.

i see what the author was trying to do but they didn’t go beyond the utopia idea, and so it feels like this book is a prologue to a richer world