I've been reading books by Marie Lu since the beginning, starting with Legend, and have tried to keep up with every book since. So when I heard Marie Lu was going to have an adult debut release, I was immediately interested in reading the book. Everything about the synopsis seemed to be exactly what I love to read about and I was so grateful and excited when I was approved to listen to the audiobook. As much as the world interested me however, I did not end up loving this release as much as I had anticipated.
Red City follows two characters, Sam and Ari, childhood friends who have been drawn into the world of alchemy. Alchemy controls this world and provides a drug called sand, which enhances the user in different ways specific to who takes it, allowing them to become their perfect self while on the drug. Specifically, two crime syndicates, Grand Central and Lumines, have been close to war with each other for a long time and are the ones with the most at stake. Sam joined Grand Central to protect her hardworking mother who was injured at her job and is unable to find work. Ari was recruited as a child to be trained as an alchemist for Lumines, and his progress allows for money to be sent back to take care of his family. The two met in school when they were young and kept in touch until graduation after which they both went down their separate paths in the alchemy world. Now they are brought together again as key players on the front lines at the start of a fight between Grand Central and Lumines, torn between what they were once to each other and who they are loyal to now.
First, this feels like a book meant to establish a series. What I mean is that there is a lot of background for the ways alchemy has infiltrated all parts of the world for centuries, explanations for what people can do with alchemy and how the drug sand has become so important. With that said, I know there are several different "powerful alchemy syndicates in the world", but we only see Grand Central and Lumines front and center. I know there's a table with a list of these syndicates at the start of the book but very little is given outside of the two main syndicates. The same goes for the alchemy studies mentioned and the discussion of the metals used in alchemy. There is a lot to the world but readers will have to wait for more books to see exactly how all of this world development pans out. We see a lot of the goings on for Grand Central and for Lumines and a few times where the two cross each other, but the rest of the world remain in the background.
Next, while the world is well-developed, the characters seem to be mainly surface level. Over the course of the book, readers are supposed to believe that Sam and Ari were once in love when they were classmates in school. I found that hard to believe because of the lack of interactions between the leads. They spent time together in school and exchanged letters but we are only told about the contents of the letters and how they passed messages to each other, sometimes given the contents of an exchange here and there but mainly told about what they wanted to write to each other. The majority of time, Sam and Ari are shown doing separate things, developing them as characters on their own but their connection to each other didn't come through as strong. Sam is shown as a child growing up with a mother who almost neglects her while she works long hours to provide for her child. We see Sam's mom, Connie, have a few meaningful interactions with Sam that change the way Sam sees the world, and we learn about Connie's past through a few chapters from her point of view. On the other hand, we see Ari with his family for a chapter before he's brought to Angel City and enrolled in classes with other students to study alchemy alongside his regular studies. He's bullied by classmates, befriends some others and is mentored by the man who recruited him. This is where the characters spend most of their time, so the quick interactions at school as a basis to fall in "love" felt a bit lacking and not enough to change the adults that they would eventually become.
Finally, I know that the alchemy syndicates were antagonistic with each other but not enough was given to really flesh out their fraught relationships. They seemed to be fighting with each other because that is what they are supposed to do, try to claw control from each other at every opportunity. The actual escalation seen in the book seemed to be starting for the sake of moving the plot forward. I know they were fighting but I didn't care for their reasons to fight. Also, the other syndicates seemed inconsequential, because the focus was squarely on Grand Central and Lumines. Whenever another syndicate was mentioned, I had to refer back to the table at the start of the book to remember who they were. All together, it left me feeling overall bored with the book, waiting for something big to happen, instead of the beats I expected to see as the story continued.
I will say that the cast for the audiobook did an excellent job with their narrations. They provided interesting voices for the alternating views of Sam and Ari, along with the little inserts between chapters about how alchemy has affected the world at large and what it means in the current news cycle. Each narrator was able to speak clearly and provide the right inflections for feelings such as a sense of loss for Sam and frustration for Ari. Their work kept the book flowing at a comfortable pace, revealing information in a way to keep the listener engaged with the work. I'm just sorry I didn't find the book they were performing as interesting as I had hoped.
Rating on my scale: 6.5 Stars. I really feel like this is a book best judged by the next release in the series. It's a solid start, just not enough to make me love this release. I'm hoping book 2 takes everything book 1 established and throws in all the twists and development I was waiting to see. Until then, read this book to see the development of a world that could have been once upon a time and wait with the rest of us to see if the alchemy syndicates burn it all down.
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