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The City Beautiful (2021)

von Aden Polydoros

MitgliederRezensionenBeliebtheitDurchschnittliche BewertungDiskussionen
1848146,867 (4.09)20
Fantasy. Romance. Young Adult Fiction. Young Adult Literature. Would you sacrifice your soul to stop a killer? Chicago, 1893. For Alter Rosen, this is the land of opportunity. Despite the unbearable summer heat, his threadbare clothes, and his constantly empty stomach, Alter still dreams of the day he'll have enough money to bring his mother and sisters to America, freeing them from the oppression they face in his native Romania. But when Alter's best friend, Yakov, becomes the latest victim in a long line of murdered Jewish boys, his dream begins to slip away. While the rest of the city is busy celebrating the World's Fair, Alter is now living a nightmare: possessed by Yakov's dybbuk, he is plunged into a world of corruption and deceit, and thrown back into the arms of a dangerous boy from his past. A boy who means more to Alter than anyone knows. Now, with only days to spare until the dybbuk takes over Alter's body completely, the two boys must race to track down the killerâ??before the killer claims them ne… (mehr)
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    When the Angels Left the Old Country von Sacha Lamb (Heather39)
    Heather39: Jewish YA historical fantasy with queer characters and dybbuk possession.
  2. 00
    Before We Disappear von Shaun David Hutchinson (Heather39)
    Heather39: Queer YA historical fantasy set against the background of a World's Fair.
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A very good book and a surprising find, as I rarely see Jewish m/m. I'm also not a big fan of mystery stories, and I was certainly not excited to read about Orthodox Jews, and I dropped it once for being a bit slow, but when I came back I fell in love with it. There's a lot of familiar Yiddish and Jewish things that I'm familiar with and the character attitudes feel very familiar. There's also an underlying anger at the constant treatment of Jews as a convenient target that just really resonated.

The cast is wonderful, the story is very good, if a bit slow at times. It deals with a lot of dark material, including a lot of detail about hate crimes against Jews in Europe and discrimination against Jews in the US, along with rape, pedophilia, child sex trafficking, infanticide, various forms of murder, the handling of dead bodies, what it's like to slowly die of typhus, and a lot of other stuff. It handles it all well, and as someone raised on media for both World Wars, the Holocaust, and most anything covering bigotry of Jews, and the various problems immigrants to the US faced in the 1800s and early 1900s, this wasn't that big an issue for me because I'm pretty used to hearing about it, but might turn others off. I think it really helps that it's from a Jewish mindset for once, so I was better able to walk through it all than I might with someone writing from a Christian mindset.

It's a good story. Well worth the read. ( )
  AnonR | Aug 5, 2023 |
This was better than expected. The characters are well done, the story has wonderful layers, and the perspective is unique. Having recently read Devil in the White City, the Chicago World Fair setting was extra interesting. Definitely recommend this to anyone who likes dark themes and minority perspectives. ( )
  Kristin-Mock | May 19, 2023 |
Romanian immigrant Alter Rosen embraces his Jewish identity while trying to adapt to American life. When a friend is murdered, Alter is inhabited by a dybbuk and must find the killer before it consumes him. Masterfully combining fantasy, mystery, LGBTQ romance, and historical fiction, this gripping story is set against the sparkling and lurid façade of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. (Sydney Taylor Young Adult Winner) ( )
  STBA | Feb 4, 2023 |
In 1890s, teenage immigrant Alter struggles to earn enough money to survive in Chicago and bring his mother and sisters over from Romania while trying to repress the fact that he feels drawn more to other men than to anyone the matchmaker might find for him—and to get to the bottom of why young Jewish men keep turning up dead in the midst of the World’s Fair. Aden Polydoros conjures up with great vividness life in a working class Jewish neighbourhood in fin de siècle Chicago, and Alter is a sympathetic main character. There are some problems with the pacing and I thought Alter’s romantic relationships needed more heft to them, but this is a book of promise and I’d read more by Polydoros in the future. ( )
  siriaeve | Jul 24, 2022 |
The City Beautiful, by Aden Polydoros, is a queer, Jewish historical fantasy. In this world, the question isn’t about whether dybbuks are real, but how to handle dybbuk possession.

It’s Chicago in 1983, right at the World’s Fair, and Alter Rosen is working hard and saving his money to bring his mother and little sisters from Romania to join him. He works long hours, shares a room with other boys in the same situation, dodges the nosy matchmaker across the hall, etc., sharing a lifestyle that’s very familiar from Jewish-American fiction. The whole thing has plenty of Yiddish insults and jokes too. I think the horrors and supernatural aspects of the novel worked so well for me because the setting felt familiar and realistic.

In the weeks leading up to the World’s Fair, Jewish teenage boys are somehow disappearing from Chicago’s streets. The local police claim the young men must have run away, and with no bodies or evidence of the missing boys, it’s hard for the families to contest that, even when they’re absolutely sure their son or their friend didn’t just take off. This is just background as Yakov works and saves, and tries to keep a certain secret that dare not speak its name. But when Yakov — Alter’s friend, roommate, and maybe more — disappears one night, Alter is pulled into the mystery.

The City Beautiful is a supernatural mystery involving very real criminals plus intense magical elements from Jewish lore. Yakov’s spirit is intent on getting revenge for his murder, but this takes the form of an angry dybbuk who may take Alter down with him in the process, creating serious tension as Alter tries to unravel Yakov’s last days, before supernatural terrors and regular enemies come for him.

The investigation leads to basically everything Alter doesn’t want to think about, personally and socially. He has a wonderfully complicated motivation throughout most of the book. I was never quite sure how much was powered by his affection for Yakov and desire to see justice for someone he loved, and how much was the terrifying dybbuk possession, and it sort of doesn’t matter. There is never any question in this world that dybbuks are real (along with certain other supernatural abilities and dangers brought over from the old country), so we don’t waste any narrative time making excuses or trying to think up other explanations.

Without revealing too much, the investigation points to many forms of social inequality. Some of this is direct, with competing Yiddish newspapers directly discussing Jewish immigrant life. But some are more subtle. Who is important enough to get police protection? Who is too powerful to be questioned by the police? Which immigrants have good English, and which ones have to obfuscate their home countries? Alter is a good narrator of this, because it’s all just background to him as he copes with his personal events and memories.

This is a beautiful story in a dangerous and dark world, but powered by friendship and justice. And The City Beautiful is also a queer love story, with believable, complicated affection. (I don’t want to give spoilers, because I want you to read this one yourself, but I have to say that I do really enjoy finding stories where a girl and a boy can just learn to like and respect each other without that growing compassion automatically becoming a romantic plot.)
1 abstimmen TheFictionAddiction | May 8, 2022 |
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Fantasy. Romance. Young Adult Fiction. Young Adult Literature. Would you sacrifice your soul to stop a killer? Chicago, 1893. For Alter Rosen, this is the land of opportunity. Despite the unbearable summer heat, his threadbare clothes, and his constantly empty stomach, Alter still dreams of the day he'll have enough money to bring his mother and sisters to America, freeing them from the oppression they face in his native Romania. But when Alter's best friend, Yakov, becomes the latest victim in a long line of murdered Jewish boys, his dream begins to slip away. While the rest of the city is busy celebrating the World's Fair, Alter is now living a nightmare: possessed by Yakov's dybbuk, he is plunged into a world of corruption and deceit, and thrown back into the arms of a dangerous boy from his past. A boy who means more to Alter than anyone knows. Now, with only days to spare until the dybbuk takes over Alter's body completely, the two boys must race to track down the killerâ??before the killer claims them ne

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