There are plenty of fantasy stories now that focus on a city as a whole as a character. In Daniel Abraham’s Age of Ash, the city is practically sentient and the city is also the central theme in Adiran Tchaikovsky’s The City of Last Chances. In The City in Glass, Nghi Vo takes a different tack. The city at the centre of this book Azrim, is the love child of a demon named Vitrine.
The City in Glass opens with the complete destruction of the city of Azrim by a host of angels. No reason is given but it is likely because the city itself was nurtured and grown by a demon. Following the destruction and in a fit of rage, Vitrine manages to infect one of the angels with a piece of herself, condemning him to stay with her, much to her disgust. The rest of the book then is Vitrine reflecting on the city as it was and the characters who inhabited it, and the slow rebuilding of a new city where the old one stood. Through it all is the up and down relationship of the demon and the angel.
The central relationship of the angel and the demon would invite comparison’s with Good Omens but that comparison is fairly shallow. If for no other reason than Vitrine and the angel are far from classical conceptions of these beings. What is true is that the book charts their enemies to… not enemies relationship over hundreds of years as the city is slowly brought back to life. But the way the relationship develops and resolves is startling and worth the journey.
The City in Glass is an elegaic book often beautiful if melancholy book. It is suffused with sadness of what had come before and was lost. But it also infused with hope. That what was destroyed can be rebuilt, that while human lives are short they can be impactful, and that there are many different ways to love and be loved.

The demon Vitrine has spent 300 years guiding and nurturing the city of Azril, making it beautiful and joyful - only for angels to come and destroy it. In her grief and anger, she curses one of the angels, and a sliver of her embeds itself in his heart. Unable to be free of her, the angel and Vitrine begin a dark and fragile relationship spanning hundreds of years, as Vitrine rebuilds Azril. The angel, in love with Vitrine, moves in and out of the city, doing her bidding in creating it anew.

This was beautiful. A unique exploration of grief and memory, trauma and learning to live with pain, as well as the things that can grow out of it. There’s a lot of deep reflection on loss and the ways we struggle to hold those feelings. Vo is a brilliant writer, as always; she does something daring and interesting with each of her works. Also a bonus in this one is a very brief mention of a confused cleric and their companion, a talking shrike, which made this fan of the Singing Hills Cyle smile.

I just finished this book, and I think it's one of the best things I've ever read. The vibes of The Night Circus and This Is How You Lost The Time War, but it's a demon grieving the loss of her city as she begins to rebuild it, and the angel that destroyed it that she cursed to haunt it forever. I had a ache in my chest the entire time I was reading it because I loved it so much.
The lush descriptions of the city, it's people, shops, agriculture, arts and more, were so beautiful and bittersweet, as they were mostly in the demon's memory after, and I both wanted to continue reading to experience more, and also wanted to sit in it and really revel in the prose.
This is a devastating love story that spans centuries, and I cannot express how much everyone should read this book.

The City in Glass is a story of a demon and the city she has built.

I wanted to absolutely fall in love with this book but I found the writing, although very beautiful, hard to connect with and the constant jumps in time were very jarring. The plot was also very slow and at times non-existent.

With that said, I did enjoy the idea of a demon and angel stuck together and creating a new city together and how this was quite dark.

This is a really beautiful, almost allegorical tale of a demon, an angel, and a city. Vitrine built the city of Azril up from nothing, and it is her pride and joy. The narrative weaves through time to give snapshots of the powerful families, scholars, and artists she brings up within its walls. When the city is razed by a group of angels who have no reason but their heavenly orders, Vitrine is devastated. The curse she hurls tethers one of the angels to the earth, an unintended consequence for both of them. Vitrine’s grief is long, visceral, and consuming. But eventually it is time to see what will grow from the ashes.
The City in Glass is a story about grief, anger, love, hate, and loss so complete you feel that you will never find yourself again.

Although the vibes were immaculate, I'm someone who really needs a plot to be invested - there sadly wasn't much of one. I still enjoyed the prose, so that's where my review comes from.

This was a beautiful book and captivating. It's going to be one of my top books of this year - not doubts about it. The ending was very well put together and the story flowed beautifully. I think this story may not hit for some people but overall I cannot see why this won't do amazing in stores!!

What a beautifully written story! I really enjoyed Vo's prose and imagery. This is the quiet history of the city of Azril and the demon that loves it over centuries of time. Vitrine and her angel have a brutal relationship but there is something so powerful in how their hatred of each other's species turns into love for each other over the course of time as they begin to see each other as more than just a demon and an angel. I particularly enjoyed the moments where Vitrine recalls humans from generations past longing for versions of Azril that will never be again.

While the trope of an angel and a demon falling in love is nothing new, I really appreciated Vo's take on it. THE CITY IN GLASS is a quick read but it is not lacking depth or character development. This isn't a flashy, action-filled book, but it will encourage readers to think about what the history of a place means in the bigger picture of life.

Advanced Reader’s Copy provided by NetGalley, Tor Publishing Group, and Tordotcom in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my unbiased opinion.

I enjoyed the writing style of this book and interested in readign other books by this author.

For me I didn't find the main characters engaging enough to keep me reading and had to keep coming back to it time and time again.

After 39% I could not go on. I found it very confusing and understood little or nothing. Even the part of angels and demons is not well explained and I couldn't understand.

I chose this book because I thought it would be a great read based on the description as I have never read the author before. I Really hard getting into the book. It follows Vitrine, a demon that loves a city she was lived in and cultivated for hundreds of years, when it is abruptly destroyed by a group of Angels. One of the Angels feels an immediate attachment and begins to return and a love entirely unfolds. It’s intertwined with the present and past day describing the her building love for the city and then its rebuilding. It was well written and very poetic however for me, the way it was written felt like it was trying too hard to be deep and meaningful and it just missed the mark for me. For the protagonist, It didn’t feel like there was a lot of character development to start off with, she didn’t really have flaws which made her less real to me. I didn’t have too much attachment to the characters and there was minimal world building. Unfortunately, I was pretty disappointed and bored. .

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this story.
SPOILERS TO FOLLOW

I wanted to like this, I really did. I've read other stories by Nghi Vo before and loved them (namely The Chosen and the Beautiful, and the Singing Hills Cycle) so I was really excited for this newest novella but I couldn't get into it. The prose, while very well written, felt like too much at times and I couldn't make sense of the timeline at certain points. The story was constantly switching from present day to the past where the city was alive. I thought, at first, that Vitrine was imagining everything as she tried to rebuild her destroyed city but that wasn't what was happening. I also couldn't make sense of the angel and what role he truly played in all of this besides being like an opposing force to Vitrine. The angel didn't seem to add much to the plot at all and... I don't even know what happens to them in the end. It was a very confusing way to finish the story. If someone smarter than me would like to explain, please do because I'm at a loss. Either way, there were still some parts of the story I found enjoyable and I did really like Vitrine as a character!

Simply exquisite: dark and tender and so wonderfully different to most current fantasy. I savoured every page; it rewarded taking one's time and letting the prose and setting and storytelling seep into the cracks in your mind. Nghi Vo's best yet. This is a book that has left me changed.

Many thanks to Tor and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review!

Such a captivating story! Loved every minute of this read. Any enemies to lovers fans will certainly enjoy this one! I am a huge fan of Vo's writing and The City in Glass is no exception!!

I think every reader has or will have at least one author where their writing just seems to get better and better with every release. For me, that writer is Nghi Vo. In all honesty, from The Chosen and the Beautiful up until this point with The City in Glass, each new novel feels like my favourite.
I want to say that the language and the descriptions in this book stand out as some of the most beautiful I have ever read, but I feel like I may sound like a broken record at this point. What makes The City in Glass as amazing as it is, is not the fact that it has these amazing, lyrical lines of prose that make every quote feel like something that should be etched beneath monuments, but rather it combines that rhapsodic composition with imagination and ingenuity.
For those unaware, this story follows a demon, Vitrine, who patrons a human city slated for destruction by angelic forces. In the aftermath, she curses one angel in particular, who is now prevented from following his divine brethren, and must remain as Vitrine attempts to come to terms with her loss.
The story told in this novel is wholly unique and so outside the realm of convention I can’t help but applaud it. While the City in Glass lacks even the base level through lines of reality that Siren Queen had, instead choosing to fully devote its narrative to something surreal and passionate; the emotional bondage that it wraps around its reader makes the characters and plot feel real and immediate.
Full disclosure, I loved this book. It is just so beautiful in its depictions of wrath and grief that it makes me want to purchase it for every single person I know as a means of telling them, no matter what you are going through, you are not alone.

Not a lot of plot going on beyond what is described in the blurb but as this is a 200 page novella, I do not mind that at all. The vibes were immaculate and I enjoyed the beautiful but abstract, kind of dreamlike writing style.

Every once in a while a story comes along that shatters your bookish heart and makes something new out of the rubble. THE CITY IN GLASS is one of these stories. Vitrine, the demon of Azril, is helpless to do anything but watch her beloved city destroyed by angels. Anything, that is, but curse one of those angles with a piece of her broken heart. Angel and demon now haunt the ruins of Azril-that-was and slowly, through rage and grief, time and resilience, they create the Azril-that-will-be. THE CITY IN GLASS almost defies description in the best way possible. In Vo's capable hands, the story feels as timeless as a Greek epic and as lyrical as poetry. Five stars!

If you loved 'This is How You Lose The Time War' then this is 100% for you!
Books you love are so much harder to write reviews for! Nghi Vo is an outragously talented writer and Vo is an instant buy author for me.
Here are some bullet points and a revised RTC.

- The prose is full of emotion
- Forbidden flame of romance that is tender and passionate
- The way Vitrine feels for the city is palpable, and adds another character to the pages
- This is bizzare! Reminds me of The Starless Sea in its absurdity, and This is How You Lose The Time War in its love story.
- The writing is best appreciated when you allow yourself to be enveloped in the prose, as well as taking in the story slowly.

I wasn't sure if I would like this when I started reading it but once I started to get into the story and the characters, I became more invested. NGL, I'm all here for those toxic relationships, especially between immortals.

I was fifty pages in when I knew this’d be a 2024 favorite. The balance of weight and whimsy in the back and forth between Demon, Angel and humanity is so compelling—every myth-y detail had me pausing to appreciate (/annotate). Vitrine is a stunning main; I loved her rage, I loved her love. I think I’ll be re-reading for years to come trying to articulate my awe for all of this book’s Bigs, even though what comes to mind are its many, precious Smalls.

Thank you so much for the eARC, NetGalley!