Thank you NetGalley for the eARC

Marie Lu you’ve done it again! She’s such an underrated not spoken about author and I have no clue why!

This book was so good I was sucked into it from the start. Alchemy is such a cool concept and the way Marie Lu portrays it is so unique.

Sam, Will and Ari are amazing characters, I love the change in POV (although we don’t get Wills)

I definitely would recommend this book to a friend

Firstly, I love Marie Lu books! This book was no expecting, I loved it and I am obsessed! I can’t wait to be in the lines to pick up a physical copy of this book on release day!

I've never actually read any of Marie Lu's other works, despite their popularity (though they have been on my forever growing TBR), so I wasn't too sure what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised, as I believe this is her first adult work after writing mostly YA, and it was very well done. The first chunk of the book took me a moment to really get into, but once the story got going, it really got going! I really enjoyed the characters and the world she has created and will be scrambling for the sequel when it comes out (hopefully soon because I need answers). Thank you so much for the eARC!

OH. MY. GOD. Marie Lu, you’ve done it AGAIN!! I grew up devouring her YA books, and Red City was like a dark, glittering, grown-up version of everything I’ve ever loved from her — and I was obsessed from page one!! Sam and Ari completely stole my heart — the tension, the longing, the betrayal, the aching pull of two people on opposite sides who still see each other… I was CLUTCHING my Colorsoft, squealing, gasping, and whisper-screaming the whole way through!! This world is dark, edgy, and magical, and I am already counting down the days for book two!! Marie Lu, I’m your forever fan!!

I couldn't finish this book, it had to many seat errors and sexually explicit scenes. The story seemed interesting but really dragged as well.

Okay, so my plans for today were to read a couple chapters, get some stuff done and then continue on with the paperback I started yesterday. That is not what happened. I applied for an ARC for this because the premise sounded interesting, and I loved the cover. I thought it would be an enjoyable read, but I did not expect it to blow me away the way it did.

I could not put this down. I ended up finishing the book today and it is pretty much all I focused on today. I loved the writing style and the characters and world instantly drew me in. There were a lot of great quotes that I saved, but will not be sharing due to this being an ARC copy. I will likely be sharing them once I get a copy of the book when it's published though.

Getting to switch between different POVs was really interesting, and really offered another perspective on things. There were times I didn't know who I was rooting for. The characters were morally ambiguous and I loved that. There was no obvious good side or evil side. Both had good and evil, and it really depended on whose lens you were viewing the world through. This book felt really dark, but beautiful at the same time. The world itself was dark. The violence, the threats and the bad things that happened. But the characters and the relationship between Sam and Ari was so beautiful, and the writing style really made everything feel beautiful.

The complexity and depth of the world and characters was really well done. I really loved Sam, and I really loved Ari. The side characters didn't really stand out to me, but that was probably because of how amazing the main characters were. Seeing their struggles with each other and with their decisions and lives was intriguing. Sam I found especially interesting because something you see as a negative at the beginning (her being unnoticeable) is actually something that becomes a power to her.

There were parts of this book that made me a bit squeamish, but I mean this in a good way. The wording and imagery painted was really fantastic and well done.

I don't read a lot of urban fantasy books, but I am so glad I read this one.

This book absolutely amazed me. One thing I hate about ARCs is having to wait that much longer to read the next book! But I will absolutely be watching for the release date of that one and will be immediately scooping up a copy of this one when it officially releases.

Thank you so much to Tor and NetGalley for this ARC! All thoughts in this review are my own!

Marie Lu just doesn't miss. This took me a bit longer to get into than her YA books, but once I realized where those two characters were heading I got intrigued. I hope to see more books by this author, it's fun to see her get to play with more mature themes/concepts.

As a long time reader of Marie Lu, I should have expected a heartbreaking ending and I was still unprepared. The world building and magic systems were so intricate and advanced. I loved that part of it so much. I kept waiting for the romance to come together and every scene that Ari and Sam were on the page left me pining. I know it isn’t billed as romantasy but the lover of romance in me wants their endgame.

Thank you NetGalley and Tor for the ARC.

Marie Lu flawlessly sticks the landing in her adult debut that feels like Jade City with bits of Babel.

Sam and Ari meet as children, both on opposite sides of a spectrum: Sam has very little and goes largely unnoticed by nearly everyone, whereas Ari commands attention wherever he shows up. Attending the same school, Ari notices-- and envies--Sam's ability to move through life like that.

Sam happened to catch the attention of Rudra as a child, who told him he had a very strong spirit and then spoke to his family about taking him into the world of alchemy, under the wings of Lumines, a gang that is concocting Sand, a drug that's distilled from the philosopher's stone and is said to strengthen all the qualities of a person, good or bad.

While he's learning alchemy, he forges a bond with Sam, writing her superficial but still deeply personal letters about their lives. Both feel as though the other is the only one who truly gets and sees them.

When Sam's mother is badly injured at her job at a restaurant due to a gas leak, Sam elects to take her chances and throw herself at the mercy of Diamond Taylor, a local philanthropist and patron of the arts. While trying to get a minute of Diamond's time, Sam is actually spotted in the shadows by Diamond's son, Will. As Sam overheard some crucial information and repeats it back to Diamond flawlessly, Diamond decides to take her under the wings of her syndicate, Grand Central, the gang making the most top quality sand.

And as the two navigate their new lives and identities in these gangs, they keep coming back to who they were when they met as children.

If you're familiar with Lu's other works, there are winks and nods to them here, as well as themes she's explored in her YA series. This is a delightful transition to adult; there's no missteps or awkwardness, and while Lu has treaded these themes in her YA works, she's free to explore them with a more mature lens here.

As this is the first book in the series, I look forward to seeing where our protagonists end up. I'm so excited to see the reading community, who likely grew up reading Lu's YA series, come along for this journey, and follow Sam and Ari.

I was so excited for this book and sadly it let me down a little bit. The first 25% was in my opinion the strongest. Both leaning about the character and the world was fascinating and I was super excited to see where the plot was going. After that it kind of lost some of the appeal. I still found the plot to be super entertaining and the characters interesting but so much of it is built around the tension between the leads. While I felt this in the first half there wasn’t really enough to make this tension continuously felt between the two. Felt a bit like being told they were in love rather than shown. Which was too bad cause the plot and the world were super compelling otherwise.

I really liked this book, but had a hard time getting through the beginning as it was incredibly slow - it did pick up the pace less than a quarter of the way through and then we were getting somewhere! I really love to see what sort of magic systems authors create when dealing with alchemy and this one was amazing as it intertwined with the socio-political aspects of the book. And that cliffhanger… absolutely brutal… like genuinely… wtf.

Something to note that I didn’t quite vibe with (this is a personal preference) was the third person present tense, but I powered through that to get to the amazing storyline that Marie Lu has created! Can’t wait for the second book!

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of this book!

4.25⭐

Marie Lu nos ofrece una historia envuelta en una ambientación cargada de alquimia, secretos y tensiones sociales. Ambientada en Ciudad Ángel, la novela sigue a Sam Lang, una joven brillante e invisible para el mundo, que descubre un universo oculto de alquimistas, poderosos sindicatos y transformaciones imposibles.

Desde pequeña, Sam ha sido testigo del sacrificio y la fortaleza de su madre, una inmigrante que lucha cada día por mantenerlas a flote. Pero todo cambia cuando Sam presencia un acto de alquimia real y, fascinada, se adentra en una búsqueda de conocimiento prohibido que desata consecuencias dolorosas y personales.

Paralelamente conocemos a Ari, un joven reclutado desde la India por una misteriosa organización llamada Lumines. Ari lucha por estar a la altura de las expectativas de quienes lo sacaron de su hogar, al tiempo que se ve atraído por Sam, cuya inteligencia, sensibilidad y rebeldía despiertan en él algo más profundo.

A través de cartas secretas, ambos personajes desarrollan una conexión que es tan dulce como desgarradora, mientras el mundo que los rodea se vuelve cada vez más peligroso.

Lu construye una historia con un fuerte trasfondo social, explorando temas como la pobreza, la migración, el elitismo, el trauma generacional y la ambición personal. La alquimia, más allá de su componente mágico, es una poderosa metáfora del deseo de transformación: de uno mismo, del entorno, del destino.



Me encantó el libro, y no le di una calificación más alta solo porque la última parte se sintió muy apresurada. Sé que no tiene un final cerrado porque habrá una continuación, pero aun así, la forma en que se desarrollaron esos últimos capítulos fue demasiado rápida.


Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the ARC in exchange for an honest

I absolutely loved this book! I have only read one other book by Marie Lu (despite my daughter insisting I read more), and I fell in love with her writing reading this! I could hardly put it down. Even when there was no dramatic action taking place, the writing was gripping and kept me intrigued to find out what would happen next.

I found the world building to be well done and magic system to be very original. The characters were complex, and having chapters from their own individual perspectives helps the reader to sympathize with them. I fell in love with these characters and can't wait to see where this story leads in book 2!!

I enjoyed this book. It was a combination of Alchemy, The Godfather, and star-crossed lovers. This is a fast-paced story about two gangs that recruit the best young people to perform Alchemy to defend their criminal empires. Alchemy is the hidden art of transformation. It is an exclusive power wielded by the crime syndicates in the form of sand, a drug that enhances those who take it into a more perfect version of themselves: more beautiful and charismatic.

I enjoyed the pace of the story and the characters. Sam and Ari were friends in school until their recruitment into opposite crime syndicates and Alchemy training pulled them apart. Both characters are well-developed and have a good story.

You will root for each one to cross paths again.

It can sometimes be rocky when YA authors transition to writing for adults, but Marie Lu pulled it off seamlessly! The same action-filled plotlines and fleshed-out characters that I've always loved, this time with magic and mystery.

Having grown up with Marie Lu’s YA novels on my shelf as a preteen in the 2010s, reading her adult debut Red City felt like a weird full circle moment for me.

I’m so happy to say that I really, really loved this book. I was fully entranced while reading - it drew me in and didn’t let go until the end.

Though set in a darker, dystopian and fantastical version of our world, Red City explores themes that are still very raw and grounded.

Story
The story centers around two main characters, Ari and Sam, who we first meet as children, each facing very different challenges shaped by their respective cultural backgrounds and circumstances.

Ari, growing up in India, is recruited at a young age into the Lumines - a powerful alchemist group - after his immense magical potential is discovered. His family is facing poverty, and he’s offered a life-changing opportunity: to leave everything behind and train abroad, in exchange for steady financial support sent back to them. The cost is steep. He is forced to abandon his language, his home, and the very foundation of his identity.

Sam has grown up in Angel City (a dystopian version of LA) from infancy, as the daughter of a single mother, who immigrated from China as an adult. Her mother does everything she can to support her on limited means. Sam’s secret fascination with alchemy and a moment of desperation, leads her to seek out Grand Central, an alchemist group that rivals the Lumines. She, too, is drawn into their hidden world of power and secrets, where learning to fight and survive suddenly means stability and safety for herself and her mother.

Both attending the same school, Ari and Sam slowly build a quiet, deeply felt friendship. They share an understanding of what it means to feel out of place - both alienated by their upbringing, their burdens, and through their cultural identities. But they hide their alchemist affiliations from one another, and as they grow into adulthood, they both grapple with the difficulties of their choices and their lives as members of their respective alchemist groups.

Themes
This book hit so many themes, and it hit them hard.

Marie Lu writes the immigrant (and first-generation immigrant) experience with an honesty and emotional weight that floored me. Ari is uprooted, cut off from his family, his language, his country and placed into an environment where assimilation and excellence are expected in return for his survival. Sam, on the other hand, exists in-between: trying to navigate a fraught relationship with her mother, shaped by the pressure of trying to meet her mother’s expectations, while navigating a society that rarely sees her.

Both of them are driven by love for their families, and that love is complicated, precisely because it’s wrapped up in obligation, guilt, and the desperate need to succeed for their family’s sake. There’s a quiet heartbreak in all of it, especially in how both characters are forced to mature too quickly.

Ari and Sam often feel like outsiders - not just because of the powers they’re developing, but because of their aforementioned cultural backgrounds and their own grappling with them. Their relationship is formed through shared experiences, mutual protectiveness, and emotional understanding. It was beautiful to see it develop.

My one small gripe with this book is that I wished we had seen more of Sam and Ari together on the page, during their formative years. While I completely understand that much of their connection is built on shared circumstances, hidden lives, and emotional parallels, I did feel like their bond could have used just a bit more time to breathe. The intensity of their feelings in adulthood makes sense thematically, but I personally would’ve connected to it even more with a few extra scenes deepening that foundation between them.

Still, there is so much to unpack in this book (more than I can expand upon in a review). It’s rich, layered, deeply introspective and (to me) achingly relatable.

The Fantasy
The fantasy elements are incredibly well done. The alchemical magical system is introduced gradually and organically. We learn about the world of alchemy as Sam and Ari do, which made the immersion feel natural and never overwhelming. It struck a great balance between detailed, while still being engaging.

In turn, the fight scenes involving characters who used alchemy were sharp, creative, and grounded in the character dynamics. I loved that alchemy wasn’t just flashy magic, but a structured, complex and layered system that felt well-thought-out and intricate.

And Angel City is such an intriguing backdrop! It’s gritty, dangerous, and layered with syndicate tensions that feel just as grounded as they do fantastical. It’s the kind of world you can see and feel while reading, thanks to the author’s cinematic and immersive writing.

Final Thoughts
Red City is one of those rare fantasy books that hits on every level. It’s emotional, thematic, and just straight-up cool. It has a cinematic, high-stakes feel, but it’s also deeply personal and thoughtful in ways that surprised me.

If you’re into character-driven fantasy that isn’t afraid to dig deep - into identity, family, power, and everything in between - this one’s going to stick with you. It definitely stuck with me (and will probably stick with me for a while.)



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

What an amazing adult debut by Marie Lu!

I have loved all of her YA books that I've read, and always found her writing to be beautiful. She writes such complex, nuanced, morally grey characters, and always manages to change your perspective on what you thought you knew.

I think that both Sam and Ari were morally ambiguous characters that I was rooting for. Which was hard considering they're on opposing sides. I love that we got to see so much of them as kids and really watch their friendship develop and deepen. They had such a special bond, and I love that it was a love and devotion beyond attraction and romance. Their letters were so special!

I did think the way they just picked up kind of once they met again was a little... idk. Insta love vibes feeling, though not insta love at all LMFAO. I don't know how to describe it.

I especially loved the relationship between Sam and her mom. I thought it was fascinating. Especially since we got a bit of her mom's POV which gave us SO MUCH insight into her motivations and thoughts which Sam doesn't have. It completely changed my perspective on things.

I also thought Ari's past and how he got involved in alchemy was super interesting. I hope we do get to see a reunion with his family and see what they thought of all of this.

One of my favorite things was how Marie made it so clear that all of the characters have good and evil inside of them and it really depends on perspective and the side you're on. The knowledge that you have. 

Especially with Will. I think his character is FASCINATING. I can't wait to see what happens with him and where it goes from here because holy shit everything that we learned about him at the end.

I thought this was a fun world and I can't wait to see where it goes from here!

This book blew me away.

I have read every Marie Lu book leading up to this one, and all of them are near and dear to my heart. Her adult debut, however, is no less than life changing. From the first chapter to the last, I was absolutely enthralled by the story, characters, and plot.

Red City takes place in a dystopia LA in which there is a secret society of alchemy. Through alchemy, there are extremely powerful syndicates that are in power over more than any regular citizen could know-not too far off the mark, yeah? Initially we encounter our two main characters: Sam and Ari. At the start of the book, we get to see them as children and watch them evolve as the innocence of their childhood is washed away.

What I loved:
Everything. No, really, I have nothing negative to say about this story. But here are some of the specifics that I adored!
☆Sam's childhood. Sam grew up with a single mother who worked herself to near death to make ends meet. While this is a story many of us are familiar with, it is told in such an intricate way you feel for each and every character involved. You truly can't help but empathize with how Sam grows to resent her loneliness.
☆ Sam's growth. I don't mean this in the sense of "she got older" or "she became a better person" I truly just mean I loved seeing how her character evolved over the story. This is quite possibly one of the best examples of how an environment vs. upbringing vs. someone's very soul impacts who they become
☆ Ari: I just love Ari. There are no notes-because he really and truly is the kind of character I adore. He is loving and whole and all the best parts of the world.
☆ The family aspect. This book handles SO many different kinds families. From Ari, you grow to wonder, what is family? Is it those who birthed you? Are they still your family after (view spoiler)? Or is it those who truly see you in this world? As I mentioned, we also see a complex mother/daughter relationship from Sam and her mother.
☆ The balance of being seen/unseen in this world. I feel like everyone falls into wanting to be seen more or wanting to disappear into the crowd and this book truly highlights that aspect of society!

And I could go on and on, but one thing I really want to point out, is Marie Lu's writing in this novel. It is truly breathtaking to see how her writing is still so uniquely her, but also grows to match the intensity of this book (seriously the stakes here are so high I found myself literally holding my breath).

Quotes:
"Alchemy is about that eternal ache in us for perfection."

"What mark will you leave, so that your existence was not in vain?"

"Work hard, reach for the stars."

"Everything can be more beautiful. And because everything has the potential to be more beautiful later, everything suddenly feels less beautiful now."

"When something terrible happens, do we become the best version of ourselves?"

"Wounded hearts with something to prove are always the ones who change the world."

"You are my heart. If you die, I die."

Red City was a dazzling, brutal, and utterly hypnotic ride—a brilliant adult debut that delivered everything I hoped for and more. With the tension of The Godfather, the magical complexity of The Magicians, and a lyrical, razor-sharp prose style all her own, the author built a world that felt both unsettlingly familiar and wildly fantastical.
Set in a glittering yet cutthroat alternate Los Angeles, Red City was steeped in the seductive danger of alchemy—a power used not for healing or enlightenment, but for ambition, vanity, and control. The drug “sand,” which turned users into idealized versions of themselves, was a brilliant metaphor woven seamlessly into the city’s crime-laced culture. It felt decadent, deadly, and disturbingly believable.
Sam and Ari were compelling, beautifully drawn protagonists whose histories, choices, and inner battles carried the emotional weight of the story. Sam’s scrappy hunger to rise from poverty and Ari’s conflicted loyalty to a life he never truly chose made them feel like inevitable enemies and impossible soulmates. Their star-crossed tension crackled across the page, full of yearning and heartbreak.
The author didn’t shy away from darkness—this was a world of betrayals, bloodshed, and impossible choices—but every violent twist and magical reveal felt earned. The politics between Grand Central and Lumines were rich and layered, and the magic system was intricately imagined without ever dragging down the pace.
Red City was not only a gripping fantasy, but also a sharp meditation on perfection, power, and the dangerous beauty of reinvention. This was the author at her most ambitious—and in my opinion, her best yet. I’ll be thinking about Sam and Ari’s choices (and that jaw-dropping ending) for a long, long time.
Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I've been hit and miss with Marie Lu. This particular book is billed as her adult debut. I stopped reading and started skimming about about 10% in because up until that point, the main characters are being introduced as children. Sam has a talent for disappearing, is growing up poor with a single mother, and who is smart but rather unimaginative. Ari has a talent for being noticed (he has a "strong soul" although I couldn't see it, very much told instead of shown) and his family in India agrees to allow him to be taken to Angel City to be groomed for alchemy, I'm assuming. I feel like maybe we don't need to see the entire childhoods of characters in order to understand them. Lu didn't do this in her other books and I wish she hadn't indulged herself here.

Skimming through the rest of the book, my eyes always seemed to alight on relationship drama. Sam and her mom, Sam and her bosses, Ari and his employers. The magic system never came up as I skipped around, so I don't have anything to say about that. Maybe it's great! I am pretty bored with mother-daughter drama, though, and the boss drama seemed to be the usual thing about trying to control our main characters, who don't want to be controlled. What could possibly happen? About what you'd expect, I think. I guess this just isn't the book for me and maybe not the author for me- YMMV.