Nocturnal Book Reviews

4.5/5
Egalley thanks to Flux Books
It looks like I'm really rooting for British YA authors these days, doesn't it?

Tom Pollock has a sick and brilliant mind. The City's Son is an overpowering, overwhelming cascade of strong emotions and harsh images, urban jungle and beauty in completely unexpected settings.

I'm in absolute awe the more I'm thinking about this book. So very clever...

The author has taken an old idea - hidden fae court, heir reclaiming his legacy, a common enemy bent on destruction, and outsider tipping the balance... and urbanised it to the max.

Filius is a gray skinned, almost indestructible street urchin who is looked after by his old nanny Gutterglass who constantly assembles himself/herself out of pieces of rubbish, and Pavement priests cursed by the Goddess to keep dying and being reborn within stone statues of London. He dances with street light fae Blankeits and Sodiumites, despises aristocratic fae hidden in glass surfaces of modern buildings and makes dangerous deals with Chemical Synod... all in weak attempts to stop Reach, the king of Cranes from destroying his city, but when he saves Beth, a runaway graffiti artist, from Railway Wrath, everything changes.

Beth takes his battle to heart and inspires him, urges him and his people to fight Reach and his Wire Mistress. But what happens when Beth's best friend, Pen, and Beth's father who try to find the girl get caught up in this war, and Pen is snatched as a host by Wire Mistress?

This book is harsh, gritty, brutal and beautiful at the same time. This is war, and its mindless violence and sudden kills are not whitewashed in any way. People and fae die badly, characters you get used to and sympathise with disappear. It's heart wrenching and bitter, but this bitterness is what makes this all so real.

Excellent characterisation for both main and secondary characters. Filius, Beth, Pen, a wonderfully crazy Russian homeless guy, Victor, - they are all flawed, human, afraid and ready to back down any moment. But despite their weaknesses they all make huge sacrifices to help the cause, and that's why this book is so emotional.

Don't expect a happy ending, instead there is a reassessment of personal strengths and weaknesses, necessity to go on and important lessons learnt.

I'm very much looking forward to the next instalment in the series. Highly recommended.