The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Jemisin, N.K. The City We Became. Orbit, 2020.

N. K. Jemisin's The City We Became is an allegorical science fiction novel. The story follows the avatars of New York City as they battle against the Enemy, an embodiment of racism. There are five avatars that represent a borough of the city and a six who represents the city as a whole.

In the prologue the primary avatar battles against the Enemy and wounds it but he is thrown into a magical coma from the battle. When he can no longer fight the borough avatars must unite to find the primary and use their collective power to revive him and defeat the Enemy. The first avatar, N. K. Jemisin introduces, is Manny. He adopts this name after forgetting his own upon arriving in New York. Manny immediately begins battling with the Enemy on FDR Drive and in Inwood Park. Brooklyn saves him from the tendrils attack in the park by playing hip hop music. They join forces to find the other avatars.

Aislyn is the avatar of Staten Island. The Woman in White, a manifestation of the Enemy, seeks her out to gain her trust and disrupt the unification of all five avatars. Aislyn believes in the racist ideologies of her father. She trusts the Woman in White because she is a white woman and does not embody the physical traits that Aislyn associates with evil. Aislyn’s character symbolizes white privilege and exemplifies the negative ramifications of complacency.

Manny and Brooklyn find the avatar of Queens, Padmini, next. The Enemy attacks her neighbor’s children by trying to drown them in the pool with tendrils. Padmini uses her math skills to fight the Enemy and saves the children with an equation. She, Manny, and Brooklyn go to Brooklyn’s brownstone for safe haven. The apartment is less protected than Brooklyn anticipated. That night she fights X-shaped spiders, an incarnation of the Enemy, by battling with rap.

By the time Manny, Brooklyn, and Padmini find Bronca, the avatar of the Bronx, she has already battled the Enemy. A group called Alt Artistes broke into the Bronx Art Center, where Bronca works, and defaced artwork. They were body snatched by the Enemy who invaded their bodies with tendrils that redirected their predisposition for prejudice into overt racist acts. The Woman in White spearheaded the Alt Artiste’s campaign against the Center.

The four united avatars locate the primary through a meditation induced trance. Bronca recognizes that the tiles surrounding the primary are in City Hall Station. When the Center is destroyed by white tendrils the avatars are forced to take action and save the primary. Manny and Sao Paulo head to City Hall Station to protect the primary. Brooklyn, Padmini, and Bronca go to Staten Island to convince Aislyn to help them.

When the avatars arrive in Staten Island, after a fierce battle with the Enemy while driving, they are greeted by the Woman in White. Aislyn wakes up from the noisy argument on her front lawn. She understands that she is connected to the other avatars but does not want to be involved. She uses the power of her borough to send the other avatars away, hindering the fight to save the primary. Meanwhile, Manny battles the Enemy in the abandoned subway station. He transforms into King Kong to defend the primary against the tendril infested subway car that is attacking them. When the other avatars arrive they feel defeated because they need five boroughs to successfully awaken the primary but Aislyn is not with them. Veneza, Bronca’s friend, steps in as the fifth borough. She represents Jersey City, an honorary part of New York. The unification of five boroughs awakens the primary and eradicates the Enemy from the city. As it is ripped away, the Enemy finds a foothold in Staten Island.