The City in Glass

The City in Glass
Nghi Vo, 2024

Premise: A love story about a city. And a demon. Destruction, history, and rebirth.

This novella was fascinating, weird, heartbreaking, and beautiful. I'm not sure what else to say. 

Vitrine is a demon and the patron of a thriving port city. She loves the city and the people, but at the beginning of the story, the city is destroyed by angels, all its people murdered. She spends decades recoving from this blow, remembering what was, and slowly seeing what might come next. 

That's it. That's the story. During this emotional journey, she is also troubled by one of the angels, who falls in love with her. But love between these beings isn't like mortal love. She has cursed him, and he suffers. They fight and work together and fight again, helping the new city to grow on the ashes of the old in their own ways. And the ending is delightfully weird. They do not "get together" in any human sense, but... how can I say this without completely spoiling the weird twist... she finally accepts what he has to offer, and then immediately turns it to her own purposes. I liked it.

Very little of what these demons are or can do is explained. Vitrine holds a book inside her that she uses to record her memories of the people she has known over the eons - those who impress her for many different reasons, those she cares for the most. Demons apparently choose different things to hold inside them, and these objects represent something about their natures. 

We know even less about the angels. Even the main angel has very little character. Honestly, I liked it that way. Vitrine is not about to forget the destruction of her city, and I didn't want the angel to get any sort of redemption or empathy. Over time, he devotes himself to helping Vitrine, but we hardly ever see emotion from him. She finally makes peace with the past, but I would argue that's letting go, not forgiveness. 

It's heavy on the poetry and not for everyone, but I really enjoyed this.

4 Stars - A Very Good Book