The City Beautiful

by Aden Polydoros

Winner of the 2022 Sydney Taylor Book Award for Young Adult
2022 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel finalist
2021 National Jewish Book Award finalist
A Lambda Literary Award finalist
2021 Bram Stoker Award Preliminary Ballot for Young Adult Novels
A New York Public Library Best Book for Teens 2021

"An achingly rendered exploration of queer desire, grief, and the inexorable scars of the past." —Katy Rose Pool, author of There Will Come A Darkness

Death lurks around every corner in this unforgettable Jewish historical fantasy about a city, a boy, and the shadows of the past that bind them both together.  
 
Chicago, 1893. For Alter Rosen, this is the land of opportunity, and he dreams of the day he’ll have enough money to bring his mother and sisters to America, freeing them from the oppression they face in his native Romania.
 
But when Alter’s best friend, Yakov, becomes the latest victim in a long line of murdered Jewish boys, his dream begins to slip away. While the rest of the city is busy celebrating the World’s Fair, Alter is now living a nightmare: possessed by Yakov’s dybbuk, he is plunged into a world of corruption and deceit, and thrown back into the arms of a dangerous boy from his past. A boy who means more to Alter than anyone knows.
 
Now, with only days to spare until the dybbuk takes over Alter’s body completely, the two boys must race to track down the killer—before the killer claims them next.

"Chillingly sinister, warmly familiar, and breathtakingly transportive, The City Beautiful is the haunting, queer Jewish historical thriller of my darkest dreams."—Dahlia Adler, creator of LGBTQreads and editor of That Way Madness Lies

• ISBN10: 1335402500
• ISBN13: 9781335402509
• Publish Date: 11 November 2021
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Inkyard Press
• Edition: Original
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 480
• Language: English

Reviews

[lessthelonely]

4/5 stars.

This book was a nice surprise.

I wasn't expecting to like this book so much, especially when I started reading it and found out that it was basically historical fiction. I'm not the biggest fan of historical fiction, it either tends to lose me with way too much detail on history that tends to not pull me in but drive me away from it - namely, when the "history" is mainly white. I already learned about what white supremacists want people like me to think history is like. I don't need to read it when I'm trying to get entertained. Or when the plot seems to be non-existent for most of the book and then comes full force at the end, which makes everything until then incredibly dull and like I'm just reading to finish it.

This book was a nice surprise since it felt like a slow burn. The truth is that the beginning was incredibly slow - in between reading sessions, I went to Goodreads and saw one of the BookTokers I follow, Ayman (@aymanbooks), reviewing this book and mentioning it could get somewhat close, so I was like, OK, at least I'm sort of warned. The first chapter is way too long for its own good, for starters. I didn't feel like I was reading a thriller, as I'm used to having a cold open (the thrilling event that the plot will spawn from or revolve around).

But I kept reading. If you DNF a book without even finishing a chapter, then you're clearly just looking for an excuse to DNF it when you could simply read something that could satiate your reading needs. I wasn't expecting this book to satiate mine, but it did.

The lows of this book are the slow moments and, honestly, the reveals. I felt like the reveals, while definitely thrilling in the way they were executed and how they played out, weren't really that jaw-dropping. I wasn't really invested in the characters revealed to be scum, so in that department, the reveals didn't hit. What did hit, however, were the fight scenes and the whole action that happened around these reveals. Incredible. Sweat-inducing, to be honest.

There were also some moments where the tension felt a little bit fabricated, just to either make characters clash or simply have a sort of thrill. Not even close to the reveals, just some moments that happen when some characters are introduced.

Speaking of characters, the way these characters have me on a chokehold, especially the main character and what I would consider the main love interest - the pining, the yearning, incredible. I didn't really like the ON/OFF approach after the first big moment, but I do think it's a very positive and soft romance, which is ironic because this book is incredibly dark. Check trigger warnings, please!

But all and all, just for the fact this surprised me, I consider this a great book. The Jewish references were extremely interesting, and a glossary is included. Even if it wasn't included, no excuses. This is a great book. READ IT.