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New York Odyssée
Décembre 2008. Plusieurs amis, inséparables depuis l'université, s'apprêtent à fêter l'année à venir alors qu'une tempête de neige s'abat sur Manhattan : Sara, éditrice ; son compagnon Georges, astronome ; Jacob, écrivain poète, fauché et infatigable grande gueule ; William le banquier d'affaires et Irène, jeune femme charismatique, artiste peintre dont la côte commence à monter et centre névralgique de la bande.
Le champagne coule à flot. Ils ont 25 ans, viennent d'arriver à New York et attendent tout de cette nouvelle ville, de cette nouvelle vie.
Mais l'année 2009 en décidera autrement.
Dans les mois suivants, la maladie d'Irène bouleversera leurs attentes et donnera une direction complétement différente à l'existence de chacun.
Avec justesse, Kristopher Jansma évoque la fin des amitiés de jeunesse et dresse un portrait de groupe saisissant, tout en creusant la psychologie de chaque personnage.
En s'inspirant de l'histoire de sa sour, l'auteur crée avec Irène une héroïne charismatique, que l'on ne peut oublier, une fois le livre refermé.
L'auteur livre également ici un grand roman sur le New York d'aujourd'hui, loin des clichés. Ce que Woody Allen avait fait avec son film Manhattan en 1979, Jansma le réédite via ce livre pour le New York des années 2000.
Le champagne coule à flot. Ils ont 25 ans, viennent d'arriver à New York et attendent tout de cette nouvelle ville, de cette nouvelle vie.
Mais l'année 2009 en décidera autrement.
Dans les mois suivants, la maladie d'Irène bouleversera leurs attentes et donnera une direction complétement différente à l'existence de chacun.
Avec justesse, Kristopher Jansma évoque la fin des amitiés de jeunesse et dresse un portrait de groupe saisissant, tout en creusant la psychologie de chaque personnage.
En s'inspirant de l'histoire de sa sour, l'auteur crée avec Irène une héroïne charismatique, que l'on ne peut oublier, une fois le livre refermé.
L'auteur livre également ici un grand roman sur le New York d'aujourd'hui, loin des clichés. Ce que Woody Allen avait fait avec son film Manhattan en 1979, Jansma le réédite via ce livre pour le New York des années 2000.
456 pages, Paperback
First published February 16, 2016
176 people are currently reading
5879 people want to read
About the author
Kristopher Jansma
6 books371 followersKristopher Jansma is the author of the forthcoming novel Our Narrow Hiding Places (Ecco, 8/13) as well as the book Revisionaries: What We Can Learn from the Lost, Unfinished, and Just Plain Bad Work of Great Writers (Quirk, 10/15).
His previous novels are Why We Came to the City and The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards. He is the winner of the Sherwood Anderson Foundation Fiction Award and a Pushcart Prize, as well as the recipient of an honorable mention for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Kristopher is an associate professor of English and the director of the creative writing program at SUNY New Paltz.
More at http://www.kristopherjansma.com/
His previous novels are Why We Came to the City and The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards. He is the winner of the Sherwood Anderson Foundation Fiction Award and a Pushcart Prize, as well as the recipient of an honorable mention for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Kristopher is an associate professor of English and the director of the creative writing program at SUNY New Paltz.
More at http://www.kristopherjansma.com/
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 324 reviews
January 7, 2020
(4.5) Five university friends strive to make their lives count against the indifferent backdrop of recession-era New York City. When one of them falls ill, they pull together like a family. The tone of the novel lies somewhere between
A Little Life
and the sitcom Friends (a Mexican version of which the characters watch obsessively). Even as his characters realize that they are not special and not in control of their lives, Jansma never lets his book descend too far into gloom. This narrowly misses out on 5 stars from me because the storyline loses momentum in Part Two. Rich with emotion and literary allusions (from Walden to The Iliad), this is my favorite novel of the year so far.
See my full review at The Bookbag.
See my full review at The Bookbag.
March 21, 2016
I'd rate this 4.5 stars.
The four of them were pretty much inseparable since they met in college several years ago—Sara, the editor who tried to control the group's every movement; her boyfriend George, the sweet yet anxious astronomer; Jacob, the poet, larger than life but unsure of what life he wanted; and Irene, the artist, flighty yet passionate, who has done all she could to put her past behind her.
"Back in Ithaca, these four had traveled nearly everywhere as a pack. While every other college clique experienced seismic shifts and occasional mergers, they had never grown apart."
One winter night, the four meet at a posh reception thrown by the owners of the gallery where Irene works. They encounter another former classmate, William Cho, who had always been enamored of Irene, but the four lived in their own separate world. And as the five enjoy drunken revelry after all of the guests have gone, William hopes for the chance to connect with Irene, George tries to find the courage to finally propose to Sara, and Jacob ponders the foolishness of love. But they all have no idea how the coming year will change all of them.
Kristopher Jansma's Why We Came to the City is a powerful, beautifully written book about friendship, love, and how we tackle (and avoid) the challenges that life throws our way. It's about the cocky confidence of youth, the feeling that everything you want can be yours if you just want it badly enough, and how you handle it when things don't break your way. And it's a book about how one person can have a profound effect on you, even more so when they're gone.
I really enjoyed this. I hesitate to compare books but its structure reminded me a bit of A Little Life in that while there was one character at its core, the book spent time focusing on each of the other characters. That was both a strength and a slight weakness of Why We Came to the City , because it drifted a little bit more than it needed to into the lives of the characters when they were apart from each other, but it was when they were together that they were most fascinating and most dysfunctional. I think I loved George's character the most, and while Jacob's character is probably the most fascinating, he was the hardest to really get to know.
Jansma is a pretty terrific writer, and he has created a rich, moving story that will make you think of your own friendships and your own youth (if you're more than a little bit removed from that period of time as I am), and how the problems which at one time may have seemed insurmountable really shaped your life.
See all of my reviews at http://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blo....
The four of them were pretty much inseparable since they met in college several years ago—Sara, the editor who tried to control the group's every movement; her boyfriend George, the sweet yet anxious astronomer; Jacob, the poet, larger than life but unsure of what life he wanted; and Irene, the artist, flighty yet passionate, who has done all she could to put her past behind her.
"Back in Ithaca, these four had traveled nearly everywhere as a pack. While every other college clique experienced seismic shifts and occasional mergers, they had never grown apart."
One winter night, the four meet at a posh reception thrown by the owners of the gallery where Irene works. They encounter another former classmate, William Cho, who had always been enamored of Irene, but the four lived in their own separate world. And as the five enjoy drunken revelry after all of the guests have gone, William hopes for the chance to connect with Irene, George tries to find the courage to finally propose to Sara, and Jacob ponders the foolishness of love. But they all have no idea how the coming year will change all of them.
Kristopher Jansma's Why We Came to the City is a powerful, beautifully written book about friendship, love, and how we tackle (and avoid) the challenges that life throws our way. It's about the cocky confidence of youth, the feeling that everything you want can be yours if you just want it badly enough, and how you handle it when things don't break your way. And it's a book about how one person can have a profound effect on you, even more so when they're gone.
I really enjoyed this. I hesitate to compare books but its structure reminded me a bit of A Little Life in that while there was one character at its core, the book spent time focusing on each of the other characters. That was both a strength and a slight weakness of Why We Came to the City , because it drifted a little bit more than it needed to into the lives of the characters when they were apart from each other, but it was when they were together that they were most fascinating and most dysfunctional. I think I loved George's character the most, and while Jacob's character is probably the most fascinating, he was the hardest to really get to know.
Jansma is a pretty terrific writer, and he has created a rich, moving story that will make you think of your own friendships and your own youth (if you're more than a little bit removed from that period of time as I am), and how the problems which at one time may have seemed insurmountable really shaped your life.
See all of my reviews at http://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blo....
September 18, 2017
Oh goodness, Kristopher Jansma, I love you so. 4.5 stars.
Kristopher Jansma’s first novel, The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards was one of the best books I read in 2013. I thought it was brilliant, clever and multilayered, with so much to parse and tease apart. So I was incredibly excited when his follow-up was announced.
This book has been compared to A Little Life, but I think that’s a factor of timing as much as anything else. For me, Yanigahara's never-ending tome wasn’t really about “four characters coming to the city to begin their lives” so much as it was about a man who endured a lot of terrible things and had a group of other people around him. Jansma follows the coming-of-age conventions that will feel familiar to fans of Friends and its zillions of knockoffs: there is no one true central character and he seamlessly shifts point of view, often (in Part One, at least) from sentence to sentence. They’re at various stages of their careers and relationships, and waist-deep in the time of life that, for Millennials, has come to be about cementing a personal identity while surrounded by a family of friends. That’s why they head to the city.
This book has its fair share of sorrows, but it’s more like if the Friends ever had to deal with an honest-to-goodness crisis than the piling-on of misery porn in A Little Life.
We open with Irene, an artist who has brought her friends together at a fancy holiday party at the art gallery where she is an assistant. There’s Sara, an editor, and her astronomer boyfriend, George. There’s Jacob, a crass poet who earns a living as an orderly in a youth psych facility. And there’s William, a Wall-Street type who always wanted to be a part of the group in college due in part to his crush on Irene.
The party is the group’s last chance for the friends to all be together before the bad news arrives—a lump below Irene’s eye is biopsied and revealed to be cancerous. In the first half of the book, the constantly shifting perspective details how the group of friends come together to support Irene during her treatment. The second half switches to three long chapters more closely examining how the experience affects each of the friends’ lives in the relative long-term (the couple, Sara and George, share a chapter).
This book was written as a tribute to Jansma’s sister, who died of cancer when she was just 22. He wrote an excellent essay about that experience, full of details that his readers may recognize and appreciate. For me, reading that essay after I'd gotten through Part One made the book only that much more poignant. I definitely recommend checking it out once you've completed the book.
There are some elements of this book that are a little on-the-nose. Like Leopards, Jansma tends to rely a little too heavily on the use of symbolism and there were a few threads that didn't really work for me—in particular, I thought the goose chase William embarked on in the latter half felt a little oddly shoe-horned. But, overall, I found the book to be moving and grounded in realistic touches.
For many of us, there's a moment when we go from bright-eyed idealists to realists with varying degrees of bleary eyes. We begin to fall out of love with the romantic vision we had of the future, as the weight of disappointments, loss, and unexpected hard choices begin to take their toll. No one heads to NYC to live out their own NBC sitcom with the expectation that bone cancer will cast a shadow across their dreams, and Jansma has done an excellent, thoughtful job exploring what happens we're forced to undergo transitions we never saw coming. Why We Came to the City is full of shrewd observations and an attention to detail that stuck me right in the heart. I loved it.
Kristopher Jansma’s first novel, The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards was one of the best books I read in 2013. I thought it was brilliant, clever and multilayered, with so much to parse and tease apart. So I was incredibly excited when his follow-up was announced.
This book has been compared to A Little Life, but I think that’s a factor of timing as much as anything else. For me, Yanigahara's never-ending tome wasn’t really about “four characters coming to the city to begin their lives” so much as it was about a man who endured a lot of terrible things and had a group of other people around him. Jansma follows the coming-of-age conventions that will feel familiar to fans of Friends and its zillions of knockoffs: there is no one true central character and he seamlessly shifts point of view, often (in Part One, at least) from sentence to sentence. They’re at various stages of their careers and relationships, and waist-deep in the time of life that, for Millennials, has come to be about cementing a personal identity while surrounded by a family of friends. That’s why they head to the city.
This book has its fair share of sorrows, but it’s more like if the Friends ever had to deal with an honest-to-goodness crisis than the piling-on of misery porn in A Little Life.
We open with Irene, an artist who has brought her friends together at a fancy holiday party at the art gallery where she is an assistant. There’s Sara, an editor, and her astronomer boyfriend, George. There’s Jacob, a crass poet who earns a living as an orderly in a youth psych facility. And there’s William, a Wall-Street type who always wanted to be a part of the group in college due in part to his crush on Irene.
The party is the group’s last chance for the friends to all be together before the bad news arrives—a lump below Irene’s eye is biopsied and revealed to be cancerous. In the first half of the book, the constantly shifting perspective details how the group of friends come together to support Irene during her treatment. The second half switches to three long chapters more closely examining how the experience affects each of the friends’ lives in the relative long-term (the couple, Sara and George, share a chapter).
This book was written as a tribute to Jansma’s sister, who died of cancer when she was just 22. He wrote an excellent essay about that experience, full of details that his readers may recognize and appreciate. For me, reading that essay after I'd gotten through Part One made the book only that much more poignant. I definitely recommend checking it out once you've completed the book.
There are some elements of this book that are a little on-the-nose. Like Leopards, Jansma tends to rely a little too heavily on the use of symbolism and there were a few threads that didn't really work for me—in particular, I thought the goose chase William embarked on in the latter half felt a little oddly shoe-horned. But, overall, I found the book to be moving and grounded in realistic touches.
For many of us, there's a moment when we go from bright-eyed idealists to realists with varying degrees of bleary eyes. We begin to fall out of love with the romantic vision we had of the future, as the weight of disappointments, loss, and unexpected hard choices begin to take their toll. No one heads to NYC to live out their own NBC sitcom with the expectation that bone cancer will cast a shadow across their dreams, and Jansma has done an excellent, thoughtful job exploring what happens we're forced to undergo transitions we never saw coming. Why We Came to the City is full of shrewd observations and an attention to detail that stuck me right in the heart. I loved it.
March 21, 2016
I suspect many will adore this book, and I'm at peace with that; it certainly has its merits, but overall it just didn't resonate for me. Its attempt to tell an epic, friends-coming-of-age-in-NYC story to me felt overblown, sentimental, long-winded, and tangential. One of its too-many points might be that you grow up and out of the angst and promise and rubble of your 20s; similarly, I felt I was well over the book long before I finished it.
Perhaps the weak link for me is that the story centers around a character named Irene, who is a manic pixie dream girl par excellence. Irene has every possible MPDG conceit well covered and then some. She has a long string of enchanted friends and ex-lovers, men and women alike, with whom she is always exchanging sentiments like "Irene, you are always about to leave me" and "Irene, I never really knew you" and "Irene, you never belong to anyone" - often even in the original French. Irene (not, btw, her real name) has elusive history and parentage; has charmed her way coast to coast and through four years of free, "sneaking into the back row of the Ivy League classroom" education; and given five minutes, can assemble a killer outfit from a bachelor's modest wardrobe and Pottery Barn-furnished apartment: the windowshade pull becomes a fab necklace, if you're wondering. It goes without saying that Irene is an insanely talented, self-taught artist - a found object-using sculptress, of course, if we want to be specifically MPDG about it. Given that Irene ghosts around all blondely and ethereally and addictively and clad in white, it's not so surprising that . I hardly need to make that a spoiler, as the earliest pages of the book heavily hint at these events to come.
Needless to say, in true MPDG form, what follows is that Irene goes on to hold the most triumphant, stellar, sold-out art show ever, praised as the greatest artist of her generation and written up ecstatically by every publication from Artforum to Slate - never mind how it would have been hardly possible for her to create this quantity of physically demanding and materials-intensive sculptural installations under the conditions in which she had allegedly been working over the past year - while everyone else in her circle is completely rendered undone by the tragedy that befell her.
The rest of the book involves each of the circle of friends differently processing their Irene-related devastation: there's an extended Dead Poets Society-reminiscent section about the irascible Jacob developing a passion for mentoring sensitive young minds; there's a Dazed and Confused section in which callow laid off financial services sector William discovers marijuana and the Brooklyn Bridge; there's bits about uptight perfectionist control freak Sara planning her Boston Brahminesque wedding, with minimal cooperation and participation from astronomer and nascent secret alcoholic/chronically nice guy fiancé George, whose life is disturbingly like The Lost Weekend if its lead actor had been Jimmy Stewart reprising a drunker George Bailey.
There are indeed good bits in this novel - Jacob is an intriguing and fleshed-out, nuanced character, and the lost outsider William is a unique and real character that has his interesting charms, and even the core bits about Irene's tragedy are well-wrought; she is much less insufferable when she is going through hell! But, there are not 431 pages of necessary, hanging-together content here, and the novel doesn't live up to its epic pretensions, in my opinion at least. But then again, neither do our 20s, in retrospect, and most of us still appreciate them. Give it a try if you're curious: perhaps, unlike me, you'll become hopelessly besotted and saddened with each turn of the page that it's always just about to be leaving you...
Perhaps the weak link for me is that the story centers around a character named Irene, who is a manic pixie dream girl par excellence. Irene has every possible MPDG conceit well covered and then some. She has a long string of enchanted friends and ex-lovers, men and women alike, with whom she is always exchanging sentiments like "Irene, you are always about to leave me" and "Irene, I never really knew you" and "Irene, you never belong to anyone" - often even in the original French. Irene (not, btw, her real name) has elusive history and parentage; has charmed her way coast to coast and through four years of free, "sneaking into the back row of the Ivy League classroom" education; and given five minutes, can assemble a killer outfit from a bachelor's modest wardrobe and Pottery Barn-furnished apartment: the windowshade pull becomes a fab necklace, if you're wondering. It goes without saying that Irene is an insanely talented, self-taught artist - a found object-using sculptress, of course, if we want to be specifically MPDG about it. Given that Irene ghosts around all blondely and ethereally and addictively and clad in white, it's not so surprising that . I hardly need to make that a spoiler, as the earliest pages of the book heavily hint at these events to come.
Needless to say, in true MPDG form, what follows is that Irene goes on to hold the most triumphant, stellar, sold-out art show ever, praised as the greatest artist of her generation and written up ecstatically by every publication from Artforum to Slate - never mind how it would have been hardly possible for her to create this quantity of physically demanding and materials-intensive sculptural installations under the conditions in which she had allegedly been working over the past year - while everyone else in her circle is completely rendered undone by the tragedy that befell her.
The rest of the book involves each of the circle of friends differently processing their Irene-related devastation: there's an extended Dead Poets Society-reminiscent section about the irascible Jacob developing a passion for mentoring sensitive young minds; there's a Dazed and Confused section in which callow laid off financial services sector William discovers marijuana and the Brooklyn Bridge; there's bits about uptight perfectionist control freak Sara planning her Boston Brahminesque wedding, with minimal cooperation and participation from astronomer and nascent secret alcoholic/chronically nice guy fiancé George, whose life is disturbingly like The Lost Weekend if its lead actor had been Jimmy Stewart reprising a drunker George Bailey.
There are indeed good bits in this novel - Jacob is an intriguing and fleshed-out, nuanced character, and the lost outsider William is a unique and real character that has his interesting charms, and even the core bits about Irene's tragedy are well-wrought; she is much less insufferable when she is going through hell! But, there are not 431 pages of necessary, hanging-together content here, and the novel doesn't live up to its epic pretensions, in my opinion at least. But then again, neither do our 20s, in retrospect, and most of us still appreciate them. Give it a try if you're curious: perhaps, unlike me, you'll become hopelessly besotted and saddened with each turn of the page that it's always just about to be leaving you...
March 8, 2016
Oh man, it’s been a long time since I struggled so much with a book. It seemed good – an acclaimed author, NYC (my favourite city), and a group of friends. What could go wrong?
First, the friends are introduced so rapidly that it is entirely overwhelming. It is hard to keep track of them, because although they are very different (the science nerd, the artist, etc), their voices are so alike; and are switched between in rapid fire.
This is a character-centered novel (rather than plot-centric), but one gets the impression that a little plot wouldn’t hurt. It almost seems… mundane. A tragedy is unfolding, but there is little that made my heart beat faster or my emotions toil.
There was a lot in this novel that almost made it like FRIENDS, except it obviously was not.
The novel is winding and long, and goes off on messy tangents that I did not care much for.
The writing itself can be quite beautiful. Quite accurate. It did not grip me by any means, though.
I seem to be in the minority – this book has mostly five star reviews on Goodreads, for example. For me, the novel was aimless, long, and not really enjoyable.
First, the friends are introduced so rapidly that it is entirely overwhelming. It is hard to keep track of them, because although they are very different (the science nerd, the artist, etc), their voices are so alike; and are switched between in rapid fire.
This is a character-centered novel (rather than plot-centric), but one gets the impression that a little plot wouldn’t hurt. It almost seems… mundane. A tragedy is unfolding, but there is little that made my heart beat faster or my emotions toil.
There was a lot in this novel that almost made it like FRIENDS, except it obviously was not.
The novel is winding and long, and goes off on messy tangents that I did not care much for.
The writing itself can be quite beautiful. Quite accurate. It did not grip me by any means, though.
I seem to be in the minority – this book has mostly five star reviews on Goodreads, for example. For me, the novel was aimless, long, and not really enjoyable.
July 21, 2016
I was worried starting this novel. Everywhere I turned reviewers were comparing it to The Interestings, which I found painfully overwritten and not all that interesting. But I really loved Jansma's first novel, so I delved in.
I'll say first-off that I get the comparisons. This novel has that same almost-hipster, extremely self-aware, deep-thinking language revolving around the particular pathos of 20-somethings determined to squeeze meaning out of everything. And, they're artists! But the difference here is that I fell in love with these broken characters, and their NYC, immediately. (This novel is as much an ode to New York as it is a human story.)
I appreciate alternating perspectives because I'm the type of reader who likes filling in the blanks on my own. Jansma did a great job stringing me along, making me care, making me mad, making me laugh, making me cry.
Yes, there's melodrama. Yes, it's sometimes trying too hard. But, for me, it all worked.
I'll say first-off that I get the comparisons. This novel has that same almost-hipster, extremely self-aware, deep-thinking language revolving around the particular pathos of 20-somethings determined to squeeze meaning out of everything. And, they're artists! But the difference here is that I fell in love with these broken characters, and their NYC, immediately. (This novel is as much an ode to New York as it is a human story.)
I appreciate alternating perspectives because I'm the type of reader who likes filling in the blanks on my own. Jansma did a great job stringing me along, making me care, making me mad, making me laugh, making me cry.
Yes, there's melodrama. Yes, it's sometimes trying too hard. But, for me, it all worked.
The seas are full of forgotten monsters, yes, but they're full of forgotten glories too. And the people who stay home and sit out the way never get to see them.
October 7, 2017
"WHY WE CAME TO THE CITY" is a story for the millennial generation with its focus on 4 people (George, Sara, Jacob, and Irene) whose familial bonds as friends were forged at university in the late 1990s and reaffirmed at an annual holiday party at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan in late December 2008. I don't usually read fiction that is contemporary or close enough to the present because the genre doesn't interest me very much. But I leafed through a few pages of this novel one day in a local independent bookstore and my curiosity was whetted. So, I dug into my wallet and made the purchase.
Kristopher Jansma has crafted a well-written, funny, wry, sad, and reflective novel of a generation poised to fully assume its place in the world much as previous generations have done. (He is a writer to be watched.) What makes the novel especially poignant is that within this circle of 4, tragedy would strike it a cruel blow that would both cast a shadow and a light upon the preciousness and fragility of life and relationships.
Kristopher Jansma has crafted a well-written, funny, wry, sad, and reflective novel of a generation poised to fully assume its place in the world much as previous generations have done. (He is a writer to be watched.) What makes the novel especially poignant is that within this circle of 4, tragedy would strike it a cruel blow that would both cast a shadow and a light upon the preciousness and fragility of life and relationships.
May 30, 2016
Pretentious and in love with itself for no ostensible reason.
January 22, 2016
A few years back, I had the great fortune of receiving an ARC (Advance Reading Copy) of Kristopher Jansma's The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards. I enjoyed it. It was filled with breathtaking sentences and magic. The structure, the metafictional elements, the style—it all reminded me a tad of David Mitchell, but in no way did I feel Jansma was trying to emulate Mitchell; Jansma had a voice all his own. I was hooked.
So I was excited to get my hands on a copy of Jansma's follow-up, Why We Came to the City. Once again, I had the pleasure of finding an ARC. What an amazing novel it is. And, oh, how so different from the author's earlier work.
Why We Came to the City is the tale of five friends, in their twenties, trying to make a life in New York City. One of the friends has an inscrutable past that haunts her. Then tragedy strikes and everyone must chose if they'll collapse under the strain or press on. Sound familiar? Yeah, it's a trendy premise, right? Most notable is last year's buzz book, A Little Life. But in all the ways I felt A Little Life failed—unbelievable scenarios, incomprehensible characters, a disconnect from realism—this book succeeds. These are realistic characters with realistic struggles who are put into realistic scenarios. Given Jansma's previous novel, I was quite surprised by all this realism myself.
But oh how gorgeous it is. These kinds of stories are the reason I read. Primarily, I read because I want to feel, I want to have empathy for someone from a different walk of life. Why We Came to the City reached deep into my chest and pulled out my beating heart. I admit, I was a little disappointed that Jansma barely tapped the magical style he so clearly is skilled in, but the magic of this novel happens in the heart, not the brain.
I really hope this one takes off. Obviously, it's too early to award any “Best of the Year” prizes, but I think this one will make quite a few of the lists. It's a beautifully rendered story and so much more accessible than its contemporaries.
So I was excited to get my hands on a copy of Jansma's follow-up, Why We Came to the City. Once again, I had the pleasure of finding an ARC. What an amazing novel it is. And, oh, how so different from the author's earlier work.
Why We Came to the City is the tale of five friends, in their twenties, trying to make a life in New York City. One of the friends has an inscrutable past that haunts her. Then tragedy strikes and everyone must chose if they'll collapse under the strain or press on. Sound familiar? Yeah, it's a trendy premise, right? Most notable is last year's buzz book, A Little Life. But in all the ways I felt A Little Life failed—unbelievable scenarios, incomprehensible characters, a disconnect from realism—this book succeeds. These are realistic characters with realistic struggles who are put into realistic scenarios. Given Jansma's previous novel, I was quite surprised by all this realism myself.
But oh how gorgeous it is. These kinds of stories are the reason I read. Primarily, I read because I want to feel, I want to have empathy for someone from a different walk of life. Why We Came to the City reached deep into my chest and pulled out my beating heart. I admit, I was a little disappointed that Jansma barely tapped the magical style he so clearly is skilled in, but the magic of this novel happens in the heart, not the brain.
I really hope this one takes off. Obviously, it's too early to award any “Best of the Year” prizes, but I think this one will make quite a few of the lists. It's a beautifully rendered story and so much more accessible than its contemporaries.
March 16, 2016
Loved this book ... might well prove to be my favorite novel of 2016, although the year is still young. Comparisons to 'A Little Life' are apt in that, like Yanagihara's book, you really LIVE inside these characters and share their dreams, turmoil and peccadilloes right alongside them; and the plot also revolves around a group of friends all coming to the aid of one of their own who is terminally ailing. Where it differs is that this has some much needed humor, whereas 'Life' is almost relentlessly grim and depressing. Anyone who has ever been young and just spreading their wings in a big city will surely relate to Jansna's vision.
May 26, 2018
Jansma's previous book, The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards is commonly described as a something written by Fitzgerald or Hemingway and directed by Wes Anderson. It's Sun Also Rises, Moveable Feast, or This Side of Paradise with an actual plot. It's quirky, surreal and fun. It's entertaining. I like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, but Leopards reminded me that literature can have something to say and still be exciting. No zombies, spaceships, or giant squid required.
Why We Came to the City is something closer to a traditional 'Lost Generation' novel. It's not so quirky, so surreal, or much fun. It takes itself seriously, and is much heavier than the summary lets on. It is, however, a wonderfully written novel where the relationships between its characters really shine. The opening scene (chapter 2, technically) is one of the best things I've read all year - bouncing the reader back and forth between 5 different characters seamlessly like this incredible long shot out of a film. The dialogue and descriptions of New York throughout the entire book are also highlights.
The story is divided into two parts. The first I interpreted to be about people moving to a special city hoping it would make them special, too, and then realizing that they might not be. Never have been, never will be. They are just as vulnerable and susceptible to all the shitty parts of life as everyone else. The second part is about them coming to terms with that. It ties in parallels to The Illiad and The Odyssey and is driven forward by the friendship of five characters. I felt the first part was much stronger than the second, which felt padded and unfocused at times.
I didn't enjoy it as much as Jansma's debut novel, Unchangeable Spots of Leopards, but I can easily recommend it and I'm excited to see what he puts out next.
Why We Came to the City is something closer to a traditional 'Lost Generation' novel. It's not so quirky, so surreal, or much fun. It takes itself seriously, and is much heavier than the summary lets on. It is, however, a wonderfully written novel where the relationships between its characters really shine. The opening scene (chapter 2, technically) is one of the best things I've read all year - bouncing the reader back and forth between 5 different characters seamlessly like this incredible long shot out of a film. The dialogue and descriptions of New York throughout the entire book are also highlights.
The story is divided into two parts. The first I interpreted to be about people moving to a special city hoping it would make them special, too, and then realizing that they might not be. Never have been, never will be. They are just as vulnerable and susceptible to all the shitty parts of life as everyone else. The second part is about them coming to terms with that. It ties in parallels to The Illiad and The Odyssey and is driven forward by the friendship of five characters. I felt the first part was much stronger than the second, which felt padded and unfocused at times.
I didn't enjoy it as much as Jansma's debut novel, Unchangeable Spots of Leopards, but I can easily recommend it and I'm excited to see what he puts out next.
July 29, 2016
I couldn't finish this book. Maybe it was because I was listening to it through Audible, but I didn't connect with the characters enough to finish listening to it. It was definitely not my favorite.
March 27, 2016
"No one was special and no one was immune to tragedy.”
There's been this annoying trend in contemporary literature lately- I don't know what to call it, to be quite honest. Basically, writers have taken on the habit of writing long, senseless novels discussing the disillusionment and unhappiness of the Millennial generation. The novel Everybody Rise is a good example of this. The formula rarely works in my opinion. My cynical side believes that since my generation hasn't faced a World War or a Depression, we have no right to wax poetic on the nature of student loans and having to raise our kids in the suburbs. However, I believe pain is pain- whether it's 1908 or 2008. For the most part, Why We Came To The City was a painful tale of coming-of-age in the 21st Century.
The novel surrounds a group of five friends- Jacob- counselor, George- astronomer, Irene- artist, and Sam- editor- as well as newcomer William. When Irene, the most enigmatic of the group, falls ill, the four other must cope with the fall-out. I should warn that it's plot is very much character driven and I will say that the first half is 100x more interesting than the first. Though it may seem like a realistic version of Friends, I promise you it's a deep tale of redemption and acceptance- of all kinds- death, love, growth, tragedy, etc.
The books shining lights are Jacob and William. Despite attempts to make Irene the novel's mystery, Jacob turns out to be the more complex of all five characters. In addition, I found William's arc to be the most satisfying. His relationship with Irene was bittersweet. I know it was the point- but I wish their time together had been explained in greater detail. George and Sam and their issues came across as First World Problems at many times, but I did not hate them. However, I admit I would only recommend this book if you are a fan of character- driven stories, since it can be quite a chore to work through at some points.
In addition, I must say that I am envious of Kristopher Jansma's writing ability. The novel's various prologues and epilogues were prolific little bits of heaven. His depiction of New York City- and all of it's little corners and details were just as I remembered. The characters, by the end of the story, felt like people I knew in real life. I found myself mourning Irene through them, and if that's not that good sign- I do not know what is.
February 7, 2017
You can see my full review by clicking here.
I instantly fell in love with the first few introductory pages. I’m a sucker for any story that centers around a group of borderline abnormally close friends.
The book strikes a good balance between being funny & solemn. After the first chapter, you get the sort of feeling that the weekend’s over & it’s time to go back to reality. From that point on it’s day to day life until a climax about half of the way through. I don’t want to spoil much, but I loved the way this was all handled. The Generation Y, or whatever we’re supposed to be, mentality of being “special” is a common theme that fits well with the topics the story is tackling. I feel some people may think that the second part drags on a bit, but the pacing is just different because it’s the aftermath now.
They’ll probably go down as some of my favorite characters I’ve read. We get a beautiful section of a few lives that have the luck to intersect at a time most people consider to be the best years of life. Plus it’s set in my favorite place in the entire world. #BornAndRaised #NeverLeaving
Just found out the author is going to be at The Center for Fiction on March 1st! Where I used to intern :) I'll be there if anybody is in the area!
I instantly fell in love with the first few introductory pages. I’m a sucker for any story that centers around a group of borderline abnormally close friends.
The book strikes a good balance between being funny & solemn. After the first chapter, you get the sort of feeling that the weekend’s over & it’s time to go back to reality. From that point on it’s day to day life until a climax about half of the way through. I don’t want to spoil much, but I loved the way this was all handled. The Generation Y, or whatever we’re supposed to be, mentality of being “special” is a common theme that fits well with the topics the story is tackling. I feel some people may think that the second part drags on a bit, but the pacing is just different because it’s the aftermath now.
They’ll probably go down as some of my favorite characters I’ve read. We get a beautiful section of a few lives that have the luck to intersect at a time most people consider to be the best years of life. Plus it’s set in my favorite place in the entire world. #BornAndRaised #NeverLeaving
Just found out the author is going to be at The Center for Fiction on March 1st! Where I used to intern :) I'll be there if anybody is in the area!
September 5, 2016
Chúng ta tới thành phố để làm gì? Mỗi thành phố có ý nghĩa như thế nào trong cuộc đời chúng ta? Là nơi chúng ta lớn lên, già đi, nơi tim ta tan vỡ rồi lành lại hay là một nơi gì khác nữa?
Cuốn sách kể vể câu chuyện của năm người bạn trẻ, gần như vừa bước ra khỏi giảng đường Đại học và loay hoay tìm một chỗ đứng trong cuộc đời. Họ đối mặt với nỗi buồn, sự chán chường, tuyệt vọng, nỗi đau và rồi Irene - một nghệ sĩ vẫn miệt mài làm việc mong mỏi được công nhận - phát hiện mình bị ung thư. Căn bệnh này sẽ gắn kết họ lại với nhau hay chia rẽ họ? Câu trả lời lả cả hai, họ gắn kết với nhau để rồi chia lìa.
Khởi đầu cuốn sách khá hứa hẹn, nhưng nửa sau bắt đầu rơi vào kể chuyện dài dòng, dù biết dụng ý tác giả muốn nói đến những biến đổi trong đời sống cũng như tình bạn của 5 người sau biến cố của Irene nhưng lại thiếu sự gắn kết, bốn người còn lại bắt đầu trôi dạt ra xa nhau thì câu chuyện cũng bắt đầu trôi vào sự rời rạc trong mạch truyện.
Nhưng không thể phủ nhận, cuốn sách có rất nhiều điểm sáng, và những người trẻ rất dễ dàng cả thấy đồng cảm, khi họ đang lạc lối giữa những thành phố, tập làm quen với thành phố mới, trong lòng vẫn vấn vương với thành phố cũ. Kristopher Jansma hiểu được những nỗi hoang mang, những lúc phân vân của họ, và đôi lúc khiến tôi đau nhói bởi nỗi buồn và sự cô đơn.
Cuốn sách kể vể câu chuyện của năm người bạn trẻ, gần như vừa bước ra khỏi giảng đường Đại học và loay hoay tìm một chỗ đứng trong cuộc đời. Họ đối mặt với nỗi buồn, sự chán chường, tuyệt vọng, nỗi đau và rồi Irene - một nghệ sĩ vẫn miệt mài làm việc mong mỏi được công nhận - phát hiện mình bị ung thư. Căn bệnh này sẽ gắn kết họ lại với nhau hay chia rẽ họ? Câu trả lời lả cả hai, họ gắn kết với nhau để rồi chia lìa.
Khởi đầu cuốn sách khá hứa hẹn, nhưng nửa sau bắt đầu rơi vào kể chuyện dài dòng, dù biết dụng ý tác giả muốn nói đến những biến đổi trong đời sống cũng như tình bạn của 5 người sau biến cố của Irene nhưng lại thiếu sự gắn kết, bốn người còn lại bắt đầu trôi dạt ra xa nhau thì câu chuyện cũng bắt đầu trôi vào sự rời rạc trong mạch truyện.
Nhưng không thể phủ nhận, cuốn sách có rất nhiều điểm sáng, và những người trẻ rất dễ dàng cả thấy đồng cảm, khi họ đang lạc lối giữa những thành phố, tập làm quen với thành phố mới, trong lòng vẫn vấn vương với thành phố cũ. Kristopher Jansma hiểu được những nỗi hoang mang, những lúc phân vân của họ, và đôi lúc khiến tôi đau nhói bởi nỗi buồn và sự cô đơn.
September 27, 2016
This book is everything that I love: a story about college friends, a New York story, a story about the family we make and a love story. It's tender and witty and marvellous. Part one is perfection. My only criticism is regarding some aspects of part 2, namely the Jacob section being too long (and the use of Homer's The Illiad draghing in parts) and the William section not quite working for me. But the wedding is perfection as is the ending. Jansma's storytelling is first rate and I completely loved this book.
March 27, 2016
I'm sorry but no. Did not like this book. This book belongs in a new genre I think I'll call, "books only a New Yorker could love". In this genre will be every book about disillusioned young people who moved to NYC in hopes of a dazzling career & whose main accomplishments are drinking. Not worth my time.
June 2, 2016
I couldn't finish this one. It has all my favorite elements, NYC and a group of college friends. I know I'm in an infinitesimally small minority here but I managed to get myself to the middle and had to bail. I very very rarely bail on a book but I couldn't see the point of sticking with this one. Aside from Irene's cancer, what was the plot? Also eye-rollingly (?) pretentious.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 29, 2017
Trying to decide whether to give it 3 stars or 4. It was really like a 3.5. While so many things about this book were right, there were other things that dragged it down. Starting with that it could have been ferociously edited and 50 pages shorter. Anyhow, I want to write a more complete review when I have had a chance to ponder it a little longer.
March 1, 2016
4.5*
Absolutely beautiful.
Absolutely beautiful.
February 12, 2017
(Actual rating: 3.5 stars)
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
During the first few chapters of Why We Came To The City, I feared this book and I weren’t going to be a good match. The sweeping, grandiose prose was too contrived, the characters too unrelatable. As I read on, however, I discovered there were two levels to this story. The lofty, contemplative level of philosophy and grandiloquence, the level at which the book started, didn’t do anything for me. The intimate level of emotions and personal insights, on the other hand, was spot-on, moving, and changed my perspective about the book.
Jansma’s novel opens with a wide view, introducing the reader to the five main characters as they hobnob at an art show. They’re positioned as five variations on the “Aspiring Young Professionals in NYC” theme, up-and-coming 20-somethings with starry eyes and big dreams. For the first few chapters, I despaired of connecting with any of them. They were so pretentious with their big-city affectations and tweed jackets, arguing the superiority of various translations of The Iliad and debating the meaning of Art, with a capital “A.” They seemed like two-dimensional representations instead of real people; they were the Free-Spirited Artist, the Go-Getter Newspaper Editor, the Gay Poet, etc., when what I really wanted were unique individuals with their own traits and fears and experiences.
A few chapters in, I got the character development I was after. One of the protagonists was diagnosed with cancer. The lens narrowed, the focus became personal, and Why We Came To The City hit its stride. The characters stopped being two-dimensional caricatures and simply became five people who were hurting and trying to figure out how to deal with that hurt in in their own personal way.
Through tiny, precise details, Jansma peeled back the layers of his characters like the layers of an onion. There was wise-cracking Jacob, trying to mask his fear with sarcasm and sass, and take-charge, hyper-organized Sarah, who tried to control the situation with medication charts and precisely timed visitation schedules. There was George, whose fraying nerves could only be soothed by a drink or 10, and William, who questioned whether he was somehow to blame for his girlfriend’s illness.
As a rule, I generally avoid “cancer books.” In fact, if I’d known that’s what I was getting in Why We Came To The City, I probably wouldn’t have requested a review copy. However, Jansma’s book isn’t really about the disease, it’s about coming to terms with the fact that life doesn’t pull its punches, no matter who you are or what you think you deserve. The five friends in this novel start out on top of the world, expectant and ready for the best life has to offer. When life dishes up tragedy instead, they must figure out how to regroup and keep moving forward.
As I’ve already mentioned, Jansma’s attention to detail and ability to paint an intimate picture of the characters’ experiences are what really won me over to Why We Came To The City. At times, Jansma would move away from this personal focus, broadening the book’s gaze to a more abstract, contemplative view. During these sections I would find myself losing interest and feeling the distance growing between the characters and myself.
Eventually, the lens would narrow again and there would be a poignant, penetrating line that socked me in the chest and actually brought tears to my eyes. There would be a moment when one of the friends would try his hardest to give up a vice, to make a deal with God that if he could just be good enough his friend would recover. Or another moment when another friend would look back at their collective lives and wonder how they’d become the people they currently were:
It’s these small but important insights that Jansma does exceptionally well. They resonated with me and affected me deeply. They’re also what taught me the lesson of this book: Life may not care about our dreams, but that doesn’t mean we should stop dreaming. As Jacob aptly points out:
This review can also be found on my blog, Angela's Library.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
During the first few chapters of Why We Came To The City, I feared this book and I weren’t going to be a good match. The sweeping, grandiose prose was too contrived, the characters too unrelatable. As I read on, however, I discovered there were two levels to this story. The lofty, contemplative level of philosophy and grandiloquence, the level at which the book started, didn’t do anything for me. The intimate level of emotions and personal insights, on the other hand, was spot-on, moving, and changed my perspective about the book.
Jansma’s novel opens with a wide view, introducing the reader to the five main characters as they hobnob at an art show. They’re positioned as five variations on the “Aspiring Young Professionals in NYC” theme, up-and-coming 20-somethings with starry eyes and big dreams. For the first few chapters, I despaired of connecting with any of them. They were so pretentious with their big-city affectations and tweed jackets, arguing the superiority of various translations of The Iliad and debating the meaning of Art, with a capital “A.” They seemed like two-dimensional representations instead of real people; they were the Free-Spirited Artist, the Go-Getter Newspaper Editor, the Gay Poet, etc., when what I really wanted were unique individuals with their own traits and fears and experiences.
A few chapters in, I got the character development I was after. One of the protagonists was diagnosed with cancer. The lens narrowed, the focus became personal, and Why We Came To The City hit its stride. The characters stopped being two-dimensional caricatures and simply became five people who were hurting and trying to figure out how to deal with that hurt in in their own personal way.
Through tiny, precise details, Jansma peeled back the layers of his characters like the layers of an onion. There was wise-cracking Jacob, trying to mask his fear with sarcasm and sass, and take-charge, hyper-organized Sarah, who tried to control the situation with medication charts and precisely timed visitation schedules. There was George, whose fraying nerves could only be soothed by a drink or 10, and William, who questioned whether he was somehow to blame for his girlfriend’s illness.
“In those dark hours with his eyes shut, he had been counting disappointments on a hundred imaginary fingers. Not things that he was disappointed by but disappointments of his own making. Things like having made more money than he deserved, doing mergers for companies with questionable ethics, being a terrible son – anything he felt the universe might be punishing him for by making the woman that he loved so sick.”
As a rule, I generally avoid “cancer books.” In fact, if I’d known that’s what I was getting in Why We Came To The City, I probably wouldn’t have requested a review copy. However, Jansma’s book isn’t really about the disease, it’s about coming to terms with the fact that life doesn’t pull its punches, no matter who you are or what you think you deserve. The five friends in this novel start out on top of the world, expectant and ready for the best life has to offer. When life dishes up tragedy instead, they must figure out how to regroup and keep moving forward.
“For she was special, and had always believed it. She was more punctual, and she was better prepared. […] Always recycling and never littering. Better behaved and never hypocritical. Harder working at the office, tipping more generously, and possessing of a thousand pardons. And yet she couldn’t save Irene just by trying hardest or being best. Because no one was immune to tragedy. No matter how respectfully Sara lived, death could not respect her in return. She, Irene, all of them were susceptible to collapse, regardless of preparations or punctuality or propriety. None of them were special.”
As I’ve already mentioned, Jansma’s attention to detail and ability to paint an intimate picture of the characters’ experiences are what really won me over to Why We Came To The City. At times, Jansma would move away from this personal focus, broadening the book’s gaze to a more abstract, contemplative view. During these sections I would find myself losing interest and feeling the distance growing between the characters and myself.
Eventually, the lens would narrow again and there would be a poignant, penetrating line that socked me in the chest and actually brought tears to my eyes. There would be a moment when one of the friends would try his hardest to give up a vice, to make a deal with God that if he could just be good enough his friend would recover. Or another moment when another friend would look back at their collective lives and wonder how they’d become the people they currently were:
“Now it seemed undeniable to him that, whereas his New York family had indeed been happy in the way that all groups of young dreamers are happy before they’ve given up, they were all quite unhappy now, each in their own special ways. That was what made it all the more miserable: they couldn’t even be unhappy together.”
It’s these small but important insights that Jansma does exceptionally well. They resonated with me and affected me deeply. They’re also what taught me the lesson of this book: Life may not care about our dreams, but that doesn’t mean we should stop dreaming. As Jacob aptly points out:
“You’ve got to entrust yourself to the waves, lash yourself to the mast, pray the gods are on your side, and rely on cunning to survive the rest. The seas are full of forgotten monsters, yes, but they’re full of forgotten glories too. And the people who stay home and sit out the war never get to see them.”
This review can also be found on my blog, Angela's Library.
April 18, 2018
I love books about old college friends finding their way in New York City. Something about the indulgence and broad possibilities of it and the quirky personalities of the characters all manifesting in the splendor of New York City. Before the yokes of adulthood set in, and in a city where literally anything is possible and that never sleeps -- I find this setting very appealing. This book not only fit that but was well written and well done. I learned a lot about astronomy actually from this book! One of the main characters is engaged in a serious, long-term study of a particular star. He is collecting and reviewing data on it. I can't imagine a topic more dull, but this author made it very accessible and alluring. I saw the poetry in the research work and felt all the ups and down this character went through with his research. And that was a minor sub-plot! The romance at the heart of the novel seemed a little unrealistic to me, but I didn't mind it. The touches that accompanied it and the characters involved were nice. My favorite part was where a main character, who is suffering from an illness, literally walks out of the hospital she is being treated in. There's a twist to it though, but the way it is done is just spot on perfect. I think the author captured what happened perfectly. Another sub-plot involving another main character and his work with a troubled teen is also interesting. Lots of personal touches and nuances. Lastly, this book is one of my favorites because I read it while I myself was hospitalized for a kidney stone while pregnant with my son. I was in such pain and misery from the stone that very few things comforted me. I was also worried about my pregnancy, which had been difficult. I was unable to concentrate or do much of anything but lay in the hospital bed miserable. I couldn't sleep or eat or move very easily. Besides watching episodes of "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" (and for distracting me from my misery and pain, I am forever grateful to the Kardashian Family), I was able to read this book in the evenings when I had settled down a bit from a day of pain and exhaustion. I was able to escape into the book. I remember it fondly because it was one of the only books that was able to keep my attention during my pregnancy, when my brain was flooded with hormones, making it impossible to focus on anything, and even more so to help me through the kidney stone hospitalization. If I ever get to meet the author, I will be sure to tell him that his book, along with the Kardashians, got me through a vicious kidney stone attack!
March 25, 2016
I liked this one but didn't love it. Part of it was the book; part of it was me. About 1/3 of the way into it, I had to put it down for about two weeks to bang out three other books for a project so I definitely lost my momentum. I got right back into it and read steadily after that but that break definitely threw me off my rhythm.
Now to the book. Solid story of college friends a la The Secret History or even, perhaps, a less-fraught A Little Life. Most of the characters were well-developed and I particularly adored Jacob, who reminded me of a friend, and William, the last to arrive.
But the book itself--and maybe this is because I read this electronically and not in print--felt like connected short stories rather than a cohesive novel, particularly after The Big Reveal about halfway through. While all of these friends were connected to each other, their stories felt disjointed and as I type this I wonder if that wasn't part of Jansma's point--we drift in and out of each others lives as we get older and especially after a monumental event that has impacted us all in different ways. However, the ending felt rushed and unsatisfying. Not that I need my novels wrapped up with a pretty bow but this one just seemed to stop. Sort of like this review.
This strikes me as a good book for book clubs because there are a lot of different elements to talk about from the characters to the structure.
Now to the book. Solid story of college friends a la The Secret History or even, perhaps, a less-fraught A Little Life. Most of the characters were well-developed and I particularly adored Jacob, who reminded me of a friend, and William, the last to arrive.
But the book itself--and maybe this is because I read this electronically and not in print--felt like connected short stories rather than a cohesive novel, particularly after The Big Reveal about halfway through. While all of these friends were connected to each other, their stories felt disjointed and as I type this I wonder if that wasn't part of Jansma's point--we drift in and out of each others lives as we get older and especially after a monumental event that has impacted us all in different ways. However, the ending felt rushed and unsatisfying. Not that I need my novels wrapped up with a pretty bow but this one just seemed to stop. Sort of like this review.
This strikes me as a good book for book clubs because there are a lot of different elements to talk about from the characters to the structure.
April 25, 2016
I really enjoyed reading this, especially the second half. I found that half, where the characters deal with what happens in the first half, much more absorbing, especially, I think, William's story.
Several people have made comparisons with A Little Life. And it is like that but without the unrelenting pain. It also put me in mind of The Interestings which is another similar book about a group of friends in the city moving into adulthood together.
Jansma can certainly write and all his characters are believable and have a depth to them. I was very amused at one point towards the end when he describes a television series one of the characters watches which was a very thinly disguised version of Friends. I think he put it there to make sure we realised his book had a bit more depth to it than that!
Excellent book, but not quite worth 5 stars for me. The second half was 5 stars, but, if I am being picky (which I am) the first half started too quickly and then dragged on a bit too long. These are minor details, though, and the second half made up for it.
Several people have made comparisons with A Little Life. And it is like that but without the unrelenting pain. It also put me in mind of The Interestings which is another similar book about a group of friends in the city moving into adulthood together.
Jansma can certainly write and all his characters are believable and have a depth to them. I was very amused at one point towards the end when he describes a television series one of the characters watches which was a very thinly disguised version of Friends. I think he put it there to make sure we realised his book had a bit more depth to it than that!
Excellent book, but not quite worth 5 stars for me. The second half was 5 stars, but, if I am being picky (which I am) the first half started too quickly and then dragged on a bit too long. These are minor details, though, and the second half made up for it.
June 5, 2016
Why We Came to the City follows the life of young millenials as they try to navigate their lives in New York City, including the people, obstacles that are thrown their way. Particularly, they are trying to navigate the illness of their friend, Irene, who is diagnosed with cancer, and the different ways grief is dealt with in different lives. The novel does an excellent job with characterizing the individual friends so you understand their personalities. I fell in love with all of the characters: Irene, William, Sara, George, Jacob. The end of the novel concluded brilliantly. Although it was slow at times, it was still a very well-written, patient novel.
Time Spent Reading: 4 hours
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Tags: tragedy
Time Spent Reading: 4 hours
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Tags: tragedy
April 5, 2016
I don't quite know what I think of this book. It was an easy read, and had some beautifully written sentences and a few emotional insights. But I never stopped being very aware that everything that was happening was by the author's design. Nothing in the novel felt very believable, but that maybe wouldn't have bothered me so much if it least seemed consistent to the universe of the novel itself but a lot of it didn't. And I felt like there were a lot of heavy bits of character development that would be explicitly stated but then not followed up on or examined in any way, so they just started to feel like quirks for quirks-sake. Yet despite all this, I enjoyed reading it.
February 27, 2016
Jansma brings fine writing and a bit of panache to the coming-of-age-in-a-Big-City genre with his second novel, WHY WE CAME TO THE CITY. Four intensely close college friends are settled in New York City and, for the most part, focused on bright futures. When tragedy strikes, it upends everyone's life.
At times the writing is a bit over-wrought but not enough to detract from the plot and characters. Recommended especially for those who enjoyed THE EMPEROR'S CHILDREN by Claire Messud; THE GOODLIFE by Jay McInerney; and HAPPY ALL THE TIME by the much-missed Laurie Colwin.
At times the writing is a bit over-wrought but not enough to detract from the plot and characters. Recommended especially for those who enjoyed THE EMPEROR'S CHILDREN by Claire Messud; THE GOODLIFE by Jay McInerney; and HAPPY ALL THE TIME by the much-missed Laurie Colwin.
March 10, 2016
I'm not sure I've ever read such a sensitive, richly detailed, profoundly contemplative, and utterly human book. It was so gorgeously written and full of such vivid, satisfying images that I feel like I've actually read dozens of books and lived several years with these characters over the few days when I couldn't put it down. It is as elegantly and complexly woven together as the city itself, unflinching in the face of grief and truly luminous in capturing the beauty of life, love, and honest, real friendship.
August 18, 2023
Maybe I am (finally!) entering the stage in my life where I am able to give up on books that are just not doing it for me. I really wanted to like this; a group of friends in NYC is usually my cup of tea, which is probably also why I kept the book for such a long time. But I am ready to part ways - I guess I just don’t care about the characters enough and having read some of the reviews on here, I don’t think I would have.
November 23, 2017
I don't read a lot of contemporary fiction, especially this year when I have devoted so much of my reading time to George Smiley, James Bond, Hercules Poirot, and Dexter. I happened across this book one day and it sounded pretty good. I checked and it was available at the library so I just decided to give it a shot and I'm really glad I did. I really loved the book and look forward to reading more by Kristopher Jansma.
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