The City's Son by Tom Pollock
- Pub. Date: September 8,2012
- Publisher:Flux
- Pages: 480
- Series: The Skyscraper Throne #1
But it all teeters on the brink of destruction. Amid rumors that Urchin’s goddess mother will soon return from her 15-year exile, Reach, a malign god of urban decay, wants the young prince dead. Helping Urchin raise an alleyway army to reclaim his skyscraper throne, Beth soon forgets her old life. But when her best friend is captured, Beth must choose between this wondrous existence and the life she left behind.
First Line: "I'm hunting."
Review: I've waited writing my review for this one because I've been trying to figure out what exactly it was that made me not really care for it and even now I'm still not sure, which is nerve wrecking because I always have a list of reasons why I did or did not enjoy a book.
The book itself is a YA Urban Fantasy and the synopsis sounded like something I would enjoy, it's about Fil and Beth. Beth is a sixteen year old girl who paints all of London with her street art. She has a tough life at home and the only one she can rely on to keep her going is Pen her best friend but when she betrays her as well Beth leaves home and due to some seriously strange circumstances bumps into Filius the son of a goddess and from there is introduced to an alternate London in which she easily actually too easily accepts and throws herself into.
I am not going to lie Tom Pollocks ability to create a world where the city is alive literally is pretty damn brilliant. I mean you had railwraiths, girls who were made of electricity, then there was Gutterglass a creature that somehow is able recreate him/her self out of any and everything from maggots to eggshells and the list goes on. And those creatures aren't even half of what you will find in The City's Son.
What sucked was the fact that I didn't grasp and understand these creatures until about halfway into the novel. I was literally confused for the first half of the book if not more, there was no background on this alternate London we are just thrown into it. I did like Beth's character but she lost me somewhere in the middle, I was also a little annoyed with how easily she accepted this alternate London. The characters overall were okay no one that made me go WOW! I didn't dislike them nor did I love them. I also didn't really feel the connection between Fil or Beth and then the ending...I was not a fan of it. For the most part I felt like I was just going through the motions of reading. I really wanted to love this book but in the end it just wasn't for me.
Memorable Quotes:
"All right Hackney Girl, look for me at the dance where the light itself is the music, where the Railwraith's rush beats the drums."
