Melanie (meltotheany)'s Reviews > Red City

i feel like the end of 2025 was truly me accidentally reading so many stories about immigrants and the lies of the promise of the american dream, and red city is very much part of that. sam and her mother emigrated to the states when she was just a child, and the weight of the world feels like it’s balancing on her doing well in school to be able to get them out of poverty. ari was taken from his home country and brought to the us to do well at a different type of school. and we watch these two kids, both in desperate need of money and stability for their families, growing up together with that knowledge of need being used against them.

then we see a lion and a fox, shakespeare and mozart, ari and sam, and their lives being manipulated by the power of manipulation itself via alchemy. we see secret societies, and the things people in power are willing to do for a literal drug of the closeness of immortality. this is a very fascinating and strong start of a series. i also am just a huge marie lu fangirl and am obsessed with their mind and how this story was being told. i highly recommend this one, friends!

trigger + content warnings: child abuse, racism, poverty, eviction threat, fires (in cali), cancer, talk of gas explosions, medical debt, hurt parent, loss of parent, ocd depiction, blood, nightmares, torture, drugs, abuse of power, assault (grab), gore, violence, gun violence, murder, child experimentation, suicide mention, grief, domestic abuse, captivity, sa / rape (off page), other assault mentions in past, anxiety, sexual content, vomit, gore

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