The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros
Status: Completed
I’m generally not interested in historical fiction or murder mysteries. However, I am interested in Jewish protagonists and characters getting possessed by ghosts, so I decided to give it a shot. And it was good. I read it in a single evening, which is impressive for a 500-page book, but in this case that says more about my mood that day than the book itself. Not that there was anything wrong with it – in fact, there was a lot that was good. The historical Chicago setting felt vivid, the characters were solid, the emotions were done well, the plot was strong, the romance developed well with a lovely touch of angst, and I loved the Jewish community and tradition that infused every page. But the possession element was much smaller than I expected (more a catalyst and driver for the plot than an element that actually does anything) and the primary plot was the murder mystery of tracking down Yakov’s killer. Which, unfortunately, I wasn’t all that into. Again, not a failing of the book, just a personal opinion, but mysteries in general aren’t and have never been my thing. If you enjoy mysteries (and/or historical fiction), you’ll probably like this a lot more than I did. Again, it’s not bad, and there’s a lot about it that’s really good – it just didn’t really appeal to my personal reading tastes.
Tags: It’s Queer!, Jewish Protagonist, Transgender Author
Trigger Warnings: Antisemitism (severe), violence, murder, racial slurs, death, blood, injury, parent death (mentions), drowning, sexual assault (discussion of), pedophilia (discussion of), fire/fire injury (mentions), genocide/pogroms/massacres (mentions), starvation/hunger
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