The Walled City by Ryan Graudin

The Walled City

by Ryan Graudin

There are three rules in the Walled City: Run fast. Trust no one. Always carry your knife. Right now, my life depends completely on the first. Run, run, run.

Dai, trying to escape a haunting past, traffics drugs for the most ruthless kingpin in the Walled City. But in order to find the key to his freedom, he needs help from someone with the power to be invisible…

Jin hides under the radar, afraid the wild street gangs will discover her biggest secret: Jin passes as a boy to stay safe. Still, every chance she gets, she searches for her lost sister…

Mei Yee has been trapped in a brothel for the past two years, dreaming of getting out while watching the girl who try to fail one by one. She's about to give up, when one day she sees an unexpected face at her window…

In this adrenaline-fueled novel, three teens discover a new type of family as they come together in a desperate attempt to escape a lawless labyrinth before the clock runs out.

Reviewed by lindsey on

5 of 5 stars

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I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

There are three rules of survival in the Walled City: Run fast. Trust no one. Always carry your knife.

I originally thought this was going to be a dystopian novel, but I quickly discovered that it wasn't. It was much more raw and realistic, and after finishing the book I found out that The Walled City actually existed in the not-so-distant past. It's hard to imagine people living and surviving in places like that, and it made the story stand out even more for me.

Overrun by gangs and drug lords, the Walled City is no place for a young girl, but that's exactly where Jin finds herself while looking for her sister, Mei Yee. Mei Yee was taken by the Reapers, and Jin swore that she would do everything she could to save her. It's proving more difficult than she imagined, however, and she struggles just to survive each day.

She meets Dai, and what starts as a drug-running partnership quickly becomes friendship, though neither would admit it at first. Dai has his own mission, and he is just as determined as Jin to succeed. He's on a time limit, though - he only has eighteen days to complete his task.

The Walled City is a fast-paced and well-written thriller, and it kept me wanting to read just one more chapter. I couldn't wait to find out what happened at the end, and I wasn't disappointed.

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  • Started reading
  • 7 October, 2014: Finished reading
  • 7 October, 2014: Reviewed