City of a Thousand Feelings

by Anya Johanna DeNiro

The City of a Thousand Feelings doesn't let certain people inside its walls. It's a place where emotions can become visible, but it flees the approach of a makeshift army who want to enter. Two of the trans women in this army forge a deep, complicated, and at times contentious friendship spanning thirty years. They must come to terms with not only the City's literal and figurative gatekeeping, but also other, even more sinister forces that use necromancy against them. As the narrator and her friend's lives are sundered apart, they must come to terms with what it means to not have a home, and what it means to be queer and aching for such a home. A sword and sorcery tale with emotional resonance, City of a Thousand Feelings brims with both the visceral and the allegorical, allowing the two trans women at the center of the story to claim their own space.
Advance Praise

“Anya DeNiro’s City of a Thousand Feelings is a huge fantasy epic with a deeply intimate relationship story at its heart. I love these heroic trans characters and their struggle to find, or build, a better world. This story left me with a renewed faith in our collective ability to make it through the wilderness and the assaults of undead angels, and to create better families as we do so.
—Charlie Jane Anders, author of All the Birds in the Sky
Reviews

Surreal and lyrical, if opaque, this profound fantasy from DeNiro (Tyrannia) explores the struggle for acceptance. An unnamed trans woman narrator meets the fellow trans woman to whom the book is addressed, whose name changes over the course of the novel from Melody to Mystery to Mercy, when they both join a ragtag army of exiled women intent on storming the city that excluded them. The army falls and 15 years of loneliness pass before the two women reunite. Together they decide to sneak back into the city to steal the city’s blueprints and use them to build a new, inclusive home of their own. While the setting is successfully atmospheric, readers learn little about the characters. DeNiro’s imagistic style leads to moments of beauty in lines such as “My heart is a flock of swallows blown out of a barn by a gale,” but can also make it difficult to parse whether fantastical elements are meant to be read metaphorically. While some readers will struggle for a foothold in this strange, cerebral story, others will be gratified by the poetic writing and powerful themes of belonging.--Publishers Weekly, Nov 2019

Genres: Fantasy, Queer, LGBT, Transgender, Novella, Fiction

100 pages, Paperback

First published January 24, 2020

Reviews

[Strix · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm cis. This book is not for me, and it is beautiful. It is written by a trans woman and it is about being trans and it is a fantasy epic that feels like ten doorstopper books but is instead a slender volume that cuts to the heart of the matter.

The protagonist is a trans woman who wants to live in the City, but the residents of the City won't let her live there because she is trans. They've exiled all of the trans people from the City, and driven them to the desperation of forming an army to force them to let them in. In the army the protagonist meets her partner, a woman she loves, and they are both better from meeting each other.

The plot unfolds from there, in violence and beautiful imagery and it is loud and poignant about how loss has happened, but we can prevail, but sometimes we won't, and yet the fight is worth it. There is a climactic final battle against a gigantic god that represents - the patriarchy, religion, the military-industrial complex, everything cis people are and how they don't want trans people to exist at all. And yes, the trans protagonist wins.

This book is not for me, but god, I'm glad I read it. It's absolutely worth your time.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was not encouraged by the cover, but decided to read this after reading some good reviews. It's a very fast read - I think it took me about 30 or 45 minutes.

This is a fever dream of trans allegory. The imagery is colourful and vivid, and emotional beats take the shape of fantastic beasts and weapons of war. The narration is in first/second person, which makes it very personal. It reads like a cross between a love letter and a myth.

Because everything was so dreamlike, the plot is airy, but the emotions are solid. Those emotions do not beat around the bush: the characters are very clearly stated to be trans women, and their love/isolation/trauma/mental illness/found family are all clearly shown.

It was a good novella. I would have loved to have read this as a fully fleshed-out novel, to give a bit more grounding to this dreamlike world, and because I'm a sucker for the idea of a warrior/sorcerer lesbian pairing. The point form notes at the end about one character's adventures were particularly intriguing, and I go back and forth about whether they were better as blurbs, or would be better in a full story structure.

Recommended for people who like hazelike fantasy imagery with layers of allegory.

[Maria Haskins · Rating 5 out of 5]

City of a Thousand Feelings has a strong allegorical bent. Most obviously, there’s the City of Feelings itself, a place with gatekeepers and walls, that does not allow the trans women to enter, and which turns out to be quite different on the inside than what those on the outside believed it to be. The novella also has riveting fight scenes full of magic and mayhem that recall the allure of classic sword and sorcery tales. There are eye-popping monsters, dead angels, dazzling spells, fiendish corpse-mongers, and the scenes set inside the City itself are stunning in their imaginative power.

What makes the story even more compelling, is that DeNiro gives you all this, allegory and action, without ever losing sight of the heart of the story: the fundamental bond and evolving relationship between two characters who choose different ways to survive, and yet find a greater power, and maybe even a new kind of salvation, when they come together.

Full review: https://mariahaskins.com/2020/02/13/b...

[Ed Erwin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not for me. I didn't really understand it. I think it is at least partly an allegory of trans identity in a fantasy setting, but it went right over my head. Her collection Tyrannia: and Other Renditions was more to my taste, and I'll look for more of her work.

[Tyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool novella, I liked the world.

4/5

[Skye Kilaen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not a great reviewer for allegorical fantasy, but I greatly enjoyed this story about two trans women trying to find home. It's a lovely book, brimming with emotion and beautiful language, and I'm looking forward to DeNiro's next work.

Also, FYI, it was nowhere near as difficult to follow as the Publishers Weekly review made it seem. Maybe I was just more willing to go with the flow of the story and not worry so much about what was a metaphor and what was meant as literal?

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Taking place over thirty years, this story of trans women seeking acceptance when they are consistently denied entrance to the spaces where others are accepted was incredibly profound. Indeed, it is one that I will be reading again, as I can see that this is a story that will reveal something new each time it is read. This is especially true of the ending, when the main character is able to gain entrance into the city, to find that perhaps it is not what she thought, and that perhaps she doesn't need the acceptance of those in the city after all.

[Roz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very conceptual story, the kind of story that I feel like I'm going to need to read a few times to really appreciate everything this has to offer. But it's also a really compelling story about trans women trying to find a safe place, somewhere to belong that fully accepts them. It's about the aching longing for a true home, the fear of and reality of loss, the transcendent joy that an open and accepting community can provide. This is a book that's going to linger in the back of my mind for a long time.

[Spencer Keralis · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exquisitely written, challenging little book. Has all of the strangeness and peculiarity of DeNiro's earlier work, but with a deep well of humanity and integrity at its core. Tempting to read this as an allegory of white feminism's rejection of trans women, but that's not necessary to enjoy the vibrant prose and to take pleasure in DeNiro's sheer agility with language. Lovely work.

[Zephyr Mang · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful epic fantasy novella that's a transgender allegory. Anya Johanna DeNitro is a thousand steps ahead of whatever I'd be able to write. Beautifully descriptive tale, and as well as feeling like a love letter. At just 100 pages, Denitro knows exactly where to wrap it up. Gosh. I haven't felt this good from a read in a while. It's a dang shame, this one deserves much better cover art.

[Uudenkuun Emilia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of feeling and metaphor packed into this short novella. The metaphors for trans oppression and how that intersects with all sorts of oppression were really well crafted, the narrator's loneliness and struggle felt real, and the ending was so full of hope for a new and more inclusive world.

[Nicasio Reed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly beautiful. The language, the imagery, the characters, the world, everything. The amount of feeling (lol, yes, but it's true) and creativity packed into this short novella is astonishing.

[Laura Sackton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the idea of this, but the actual story was just too vague for me to connect with.

[Seras23 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really love this novella. It is strange and beautiful. I would really have loved if it had been expanded into a full novel and explored this world more fully.

[Apollo · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little too artsy for my tastes, but an interesting read nonetheless.

[Phoebe Mogharei · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novella that works as a metaphor and as a fantastical story in itself. Love the core relationship that, like the city of their dreams, is unbounded and based in a recognition of mutual power.