Following a posessive and malicous demon and the angel of a famous city bring many thoughts of duality and the chaos that is brought with duality.

The City in Glass by Nghi Vo follows a demon named Vitrine and a city called Azril and how the two of them are interconnected.

This is one of those books that could best be described as not much plot, all vibes. Like the other books I have read by this author, this book just scratched something in my brain. The prose is lyrical and luscious and the story that is woven is captivating.

This story is also one of those “trust the process” books. The beginning is kind of confusing but the more you read, the more it makes sense and you begin to form an attachment to the characters.

I cannot wait to reread this and annotate it. There were some lines that really hit deep and the overall story was so beautiful.

I have never read a book with such beautifully written prose before. At the beginning I actually thought to myself that maybe this book isn’t for me, maybe I’m too “simple” of a reader and I won’t be able to understand it. I kept reading despite that, and I’m very glad I did, because seeing the world (more specifically, the city of Azril) from the demon Vitrine’s point of view was hauntingly captivating. To see the way humanity looks from the mind of a demon, and at points an angel, is to see things from an entirely different perspective of your own.
I, like many others, struggle with the concept of time. Have I wasted too much of it? Do I have enough time left? What am I doing with my time now? But to see time pass by from the eyes of someone on the outside made me reflect upon it differently. Humanity has its purpose and we go through seasons and generations and while our time passes slowly in our eyes, it may also by quickly in relation to our whole universe. It’s interesting to see Vitrine’s perspective on the way 10, 50, 100, even 300 years passes in her beloved city.
I’m just rambling now and may have an existential crisis about this later, but I still encourage others to read and reflect and fall in love with Vitrine and Azril like I did.
I’m very thankful to Tor and NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book!

Is it odd to give a book 4 stars before I'm even sure I liked it?

CITY IN GLASS was a fascinating read. I split this book in two halves -- one I read up through midnight, and one I woke up an hour before my alarm to finish out (and that is practically a miracle). I've always been fascinated by stories of this nature: Pompeii, Atlantis, Martin's Doom of Valyria, Critical Role's Fall of Avalir -- stories centered around the destruction of a civilization. In most stories, we don't learn what comes after -- the survivors, if there are any, flee and begin life somewhere else. In CITY OF GLASS, we stay with the city as the demon Vitrine tries to breathe life back into the city she loved so much.

I truly couldn't say if I enjoyed the plot of this book, but the setting, the lush details of Virtine's memories of Azril in its prime, its humble beginnings, and the people she loved and favored to bring the city to greatness felt like reading a folktale. I wrote on Fable that the early part of this book feels like a eulogy, but now that I've reached the end, I think this book reads like the mythos of some lost civilization.

Will everyone like this book? I don't know - I constantly recommend Nghi Vo to people who wind up not enjoying their work. There's just something about Vo's writing that clicks with my reading tastes so deeply, so please note that I am incredibly biased when I say that this was a stunning book.

Demon Vitrine loves her city of Azril, but then the horde of angels come and burns it to the ground. Vitrine manages to nail one of the them with a curse, which lodges in his chest....and ends up tying him to Vitrine and Azril. A beautiful, meandering contemplation of love and grief.

Gorgeous prose, enchanting and haunting story. This is a kind of "no plot just vibes" love letter from a demon to a city she has raised, watched fall, raised again. It was interesting to get Vitrine, an immortal demon's POV and see how much time she could so easily "waste" doing anything and nothing, because when you have forever, a year, even 50 years is so negligible to you. The angel was not as prevalent in the book as I expected based on the blurb, but wow that part of the story was captivating, dark, and deep. The slow pace of this made it feel a bit longer than it is to me. Really enjoyed it overall!

i recently read the city in glass and i thoroughly enjoyed my experience. the book follows vitrine, a demon as she rebuilds her city after it was destroyed by angels. the writing was very lyrical and poetic and i enjoyed the way the story flowed. there weren't very many plot points it was more so just vibes but they were fantastic and i didn't mind this point. the dynamic between the angel and vitrine was very interesting in the way they interacted with each other. overall i really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to any fantasy readers.

Anyone who wants to put out any short-form content should be taking notes from Nghi Vo—her ability to put out consistently well-written and captivating stories at around the two-hundred-page mark. You might naively think that shorter books are easier to write than longer books, and I would think you are wrong. It takes extreme focus and clarity of vision to deliver a story in a shorter space and Nghi Vo seems to kill it almost every time. Today’s tale, The City in Glass, is one of divine architecture; about a demon who makes it her passion to build a city of wonder.

The demon Vitrine—immortal, powerful, and capricious—loves her dazzling city of Azril. She has existed behind the curtain, wandering the streets, mothering its people and culture for generations. She has built it in her own image into a place of joy, desire, revelry, and riot. Then some asshole angels come along and completely level it with no warning or explanation.

Vitrine is left with nothing but ruins and an ever-burning hatred and tenacity. She decides that she will rebuild the city, no matter how long it takes and the obstacles in her way. In her heart, she carries a book containing the names of those she has lost. She will use this book and the new city to make a monument to what was lost, and perhaps something new. Amongst all the wreckage, Vitrine finds that one of the angels has elected to remain after their work is finished. Initially connected by a deep hatred, these two soon find themselves locked in a devouring fascination that will change them both forever.

The City in Glass is a fascinating look at grief, hatred, and tenacity. It dissects how these forces can change a person (or demon, or angel) and it examines how small forces can wreak huge change given enough time. Vo places emotional streams in the bedrock of our characters and we watch as they wear a new path through the foundation of who they are until you can behold an incredible canyon a millennia later.

I really liked her take on angels and demons, evolving their traditional literary roles to be anchored in common perception but leaning towards something more morally grey. Vitrine is a selfish entity, but her innate desire is to build something and see it flourish. She will not blink at cruelty in the name of her ambitions, but her ambition seems to be to make something beautiful and worth beholding. Her passion infects the rogue angel like a virus and we see him slowly move away from impartial observer to emotional investor. I loved both of these divine characters and their relationship was captivating and otherworldly.

I also had a lot of fun watching Vo essentially map out first what makes a city tick at the beginning of the book, and then how to build a city from the ground up after it gets leveled. Vo’s attention to detail and ability to extrapolate the future from small present choices is a delight. My one slight hitch is I thought the ending was a bit abrupt. It is so because the focus is more on an examination of the attachment of the divine beings to the city more than the fate of the city itself. Yet, Vo is so convincing with her arguments in the story that I became deeply invested in the city as well and I wish we got to see more of its fate.

The City in Glass is yet another arrow in Vo’s quiver of absolutely killing it in short-form fiction and definitely worth your time. The tale’s themes are executed so well that I found myself a third member of this angel/demon couple struggling with the same concepts that they were. Incredible execution, great theme, fabulous story.

Rating: The City in Glass – 8.5/10
-Andrew

This book was quite unique with its structure and to be honest, it wasn’t for me. The writing was very flowery. I wish I could say I loved it but it was just okay.

Absolutely blew me away! The writing is breathtaking, the world-building is insanely rich, and the characters—wow, just wow. Every page is packed with so much depth, especially around themes like reclaiming power and identity, that you can’t help but get completely lost in it. If you’re into fantasy that’s as stunning as it is thought-provoking, this is an absolute must-read.

holy and infernal, absolutely blissfully devastating. it makes me want to get a library card for every city i've ever been to.

The beginning had me hooked but it did start to drag with the repetitive actions which is on purpose but it slows down the momentum. This was a very thought provoking short story that I still think about. This story reminded me of Laini Taylor's Strange the Dreamer duology.

This was the first book by Nghi Vo I have read, and I cannot wait to get my hands on others. The writing was absolutely beautiful, and it is hard to put this slim book down once you begin reading it.

I struggle to begin to explain the plot, and even when I try, I know that I am not doing it justice. This is definitely going to be one of the books I hand to customers and friends saying, "Just trust me, this one is good."

It might seem odd, but I appreciated that this was a rich fantasy story without a lot of world building. I also liked the way the story switches between Vitrine's memories and the present time. It isn't exactly a romance, but it is also one of the most romantic books I have read in a while. The ending was perfect and also heartbreaking.

I really can't wait to read more by this author!

Oh my Lordy this book was so good. Thank you to the publisher for the arc. Without adding life to the synopsis, this boon was so freaking good.

Nghi Vo's way of writing is totally absorbing and delicate. I think he has a unique way of telling a great story in just a few pages.

Yes, I admit that I have not managed to connect 100% with the story and the characters, but I cannot fail to mention the incredible way it has of conveying to us what the story requires.

Although it is the second thing I have read by this author, I feel that maybe I haven't found something that really catches me yet. However, I highly recommend it for those looking for a story told in a fresh, different way that allows you to travel to a completely different world with just a few words.

Thank you Tor Publishing Group for the ARC I read on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Nghi Vo is such a fantastic writer that I will read anything that she has out--and she just keeps getting better. The City in Glass focuses on the demon named Vitrine (the word also refers to a glass cabinet for storing curios) who has come to the city of Azril and tends to it over the course of many years, storing various treasures and memories in the glass cabinet in her heart. That is, until one day, an unnamed angel comes to the town and destroys it, along with several of his brethren. (Although the angel Azrael is in Jewish and Moslem lore as the angel who separates the body and soul at death). That day of destruction is the beginning of the story of the relationship between Vitrine and the angel, and the bulk of the book explores the complicated facets of what it means to love. There are so many layers to all of it! This is such a many-layered story that one reading will never be enough, and I look forward to finding more insights with every re-read of the story. I highly recommend it.

This book is so strange, a demon has spent centuries growing a city when a group of angels descend to destroy it (for no reason that I could understand but I might have missed it, the prose is very slippery). As the angels are departing, the demon's heart is shattering and she flings a shard of it at the last angel, tethering him to herself - and this ruined city. The narrative style is very like the Singing Hills Cycle books. We learn about-and in my case grow to love- the lost city through the memories that the demon relives as she slowly clears way to begin again. This is a beautifully written story about death and rebirth, a cycle that everything partakes in on some scale. I loved the vignette style of storytelling, unearthing stories from the cities past as the narrator unearths remains of the mayor's mansion, for example. With a timeline that is impossible to pin down and a narrator that changes shape with a thought and has moods that shift just as fast, this book will sit snugly in my heart for a while!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Tor Publishing Group, for giving me access to this book in exchange for this honest review!

To try to describe this story would be like trying to define grief. Vitrine is an demon who has adopted a city as her own, watching it grow from the seed of a city into something great. Until the powers of heaven burn it all down. Among the rubble and rust of her beloved city she vows to bring it back, and curses one of the angels who destroyed her home.

In The City in Glass, a demon and an angel oversee the rebuilding of the city of Avril. (After the city had been destroyed by the angel and his brothers.) Our Protagonist is Vitrine, a demon whose hobbies involve city planning and culture engineering. She had been working on Avril for many human generations when the angels show up and completely destroy her city and everyone in it. Vitrine is not able to do do anything to stop it, though she is able to snipe one of the angels, cursing him so that he is unable to return to his brethren.

Following the city's destruction, Vitrine tumbles into a state of grief. The angel meanwhile attempts to make reparations, in hopes that she'll remove the curse. The reparations are extremely unsuccessful, and not just because Vitrine is extremely vengeful and also a demon: the angel is unable to understand why Vitrine is angry with him, and the reason for her grief. (Vitrine and the angel are equally alien, inhuman beings but Vitrine is more empathetic and sympathetic toward mortals. The angel on the other hand is at first unable to differentiate between a girl and a crane...and why it might be important to do so. Yes...that's a spoiler.)

The narrative flow of The City in Glass is reminiscent of Patricia McKillip's writing style; poetic and dreamlike, though much darker in tone. The novel is full of loving descriptions of the city, it's history and the people Vitrine loved and influenced. Vitrine is an interesting character, as are her brothers and sisters, all of them who have a cabinet inside them where they keep things that are important to them. (Vitrine's cabinet has a book that she writes the names of all the people she's cared about...other relatives have stranger or more horrifying things in them.)

Vitrine slowly rebuilds her city with and without the angel's assistance. I found their relationship to be fascinating and extremely complicated. It starts out antagonistic, but slowly becomes more empathetic as the angel slowly begins to understand Vitrine and her motivations. They grow closer and fall apart as their relationship develops, and the angel ends up influencing the city and its people as much as Vitrine does.

The City in Glass is a intricate examination of grief and revenge. (And also love, but definitely not forgiveness. Vitrine is after all a demon, and the angel did after all destroy her city.) It's also about recovering from grief and rebuilding from the ruins. This book was an enjoyable, thoughtful story with complex characters that are both incredibly alien and inhuman, yet relatable.

This review is based on a galley received from NetGalley.

Nghi Vo has crafted an absolute masterpiece with The City in Glass. It is a breathtaking journey through memory, transformation, and redemption, weaving a tale that is both epic and intimate. Vo’s storytelling is simply magical, making this a must-read for any fan of sci-fi and fantasy. I couldn’t put it down!