Ryan Graudin

730. That's how many days I've been trapped.18. That's how many days I have left to find a way out. DAI, trying to escape a haunting past, traffics drugs for the most ruthless kingpin in the Walled City. But in order to find the key to his freedom, he needs help from someone with the power to be invisible.... JIN hides under the radar, afraid the wild street gangs will discover her biggest secret: Jin passes as a boy to stay safe. Still, every chance she gets, she searches for her lost sister.... MEI YEE has been trapped in a brothel for the past two years, dreaming of getting out while watching the girls who try fail one by one. She's about to give up, when one day she sees an unexpected face at her window..... In this innovative and adrenaline-fueled novel, they all come together in a desperate attempt to escape a lawless labyrinth before the clock runs out.

The Walled City

alexandra

FULL BLOG REVIEW

7.0/10 ✩

I have mixed feelings for this book. It was a fast-paced and exciting read. Ryan Graudin has a beautiful and poetic writing style, but unexpectedly, it left the world hard to picture. The strong topics discussed in the book opened my eyes to the harsh reality of things. Most authors would try avoid the darkness of prostitution and murder, but Graudin hid nothing. It made the story much more interesting and in-depth. Although this book wasn't a "light read," it was definitely easy to get through and left me wanting more. Overall, the characters, plot, and world building was meh, but the writing style was superb.

730. That's how many days I've been trapped. 18. That's how many days I have left to find a way out. Jin, Mei Yee, and Dai all live in the Walled City, a lawless labyrinth run by crime lords and overrun by street gangs. Teens there traffic drugs or work in brothels--or, like Jin, hide under the radar. But when Dai offers Jin a chance to find her lost sister, Mei Yee, she begins a breathtaking race against the clock to escape the Walled City itself.

Nicole 

The walled city depicts a place where there is no law. Jin who is pretending to be a boy is looking for her sister Mei. Their paths unknowingly cross with Dai who is trying to amend past tragedies.

DIVERGENT meets MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA in this dark YA thriller set within the walls of a lawless slum city, where Jin Ling searches for her lost sister and Dai struggles to complete an impossible mission. There are three rules of survival in the Walled City: Run fast. Trust no one. Always carry your knife. Right now, my life depends completely on the first. Run, run, run. Dai traffics drugs for the most ruthless man in the Walled City. To find freedom, he needs help from someone who can be invisible... Jin Ling hides under the radar, evading the street gangs as she searches for her lost sister. Mei Yee survives trapped in a brothel, dreaming of escape while watching the girls who try fail and die. Damaged and betrayed, can these three find the faith to join forces and escape the stifling city walls? With a fantasy setting inspired by Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong, Ryan's novel has a rich authenticity and an intense atmosphere, and its pace will enthral the reader from the very first page.

Charmaine

Not Ryan's best. I feel like she might have been too ambitious in trying to write a meaningful story. It was meant to be impactful, but didn't really have that effect. The plot and characters were good, of course. A few things left me frustrated. I just can't get over the fact that she skimmed over the rape in the brothel. Not too sure about what this book was supposed to be for me.

Jas Wang

There are three rules of survival in the Walled City: Run fast. Trust no one. Always carry your knife. Right now, my life depends completely on the first. Run, run, run. Dai traffics drugs for the most ruthless man in the Walled City. To find freedom, he needs help from someone who can be invisible... Jin Ling hides under the radar, evading the street gangs as she searches for her lost sister. Mei Yee survives trapped in a brothel, dreaming of escape while watching the girls who try fail and die. Damaged and betrayed, can these three find the faith to join forces and escape the stifling city walls? With a fantasy setting inspired by Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong, Ryan's novel has a rich authenticity and an intense atmosphere, and its pace will enthral the reader from the very first page.

Becky

3.5 stars

It was an excellent read but I could not help comparing it to Wolf by Wolf and it just didn't match up with that. It was a very good book, though. I was gripped and fascinated by both the city and it's real life counterpart. I liked the book and can see the potential for it. It was also nice to be reading a standalone but I sadly did not fall in 
love.

Toni Turner

This book is so good. Action packed and fierce and intense with characters to match. The walled city is such an interesting, terrifying, unreal thing. I appreciate the stories of kids forced to live on the streets and those forced into brothels. They are the kind of stories that will never not hold my attention because of how unreal and fictitious they seem, even though they are so real and so true that I probably would not have to look too far to find them in my life. That’s fucking terrifying. But it always reaffirms the fact that my deepest wish is to be able to help. One day.

Chrissy

this was such a different, unique, brutal tale that takes inspiration from real life. I really appreciated the authors note where she explains quickly how this book came to her. 
RTC

Yoomi

The book opens with Jin on the run from one of the street gangs. The fast paced introduction to the Walled City set the scene well - Jin is looking for her sister, the Brotherhood runs the city, there are dangers hidden in every twist and turn. I'm usually a sucker for any plot that involves sisters but this one didn't hold up after the strong start.

Jin and Mei Yee ended up in the city because Mei Yee was sold to a brothel by their brute of a drunk father. Jin followed to save her. But as the story progresses, Mei Yee is nothing but a pretty face. Her character does develop some strength towards the end, but sadly, she remained two-dimensional.

Jin is a survivor. She is feisty and strong and has about as many lives as her cat, Chma. Dai has secrets of his own and his countdown (to what?) defines the chapters and paces the story. The action picks up towards the end with the confrontation of all the major players but when I was done, I didn't feel like I needed to tell everyone about it.

Sadly, I was more intrigued by the real city that the story was inspired by.


I received a free digital copy from Netgalley for an honest review.

Kristen

Yet another book I don't think I'd have finished if I wasn't listening to the audio.

The POVs were so similar to each other. The story is told by 3 different characters: Dai, Jin, and Jin's sister Mei Yee. It's written in first person, and all three of these people have very similar voices. If they weren't each read by a different person, it would have been really hard to keep track of who was talking when, so I'm thankful they went that route with the audiobook instead of having just one narrator. 

I almost put this book down after an hour of listening. And I did listen to other books in between because I got kind of bored. I felt like a lot of time was spent on metaphors, imagery, and description, but the pacing required that the story progress much more quickly than all that allows and it really held the story back from its potential. We'd spend a long time listening to a description, meanwhile something was HAPPENING, and it was almost like that was an afterthought to the thorough, flowery descriptions sometimes.

It was a powerful, gritty story, and it was absolutely NOTHING like what I expected. I expected a survival story, but this totally took it up a notch. If it was a faster-paced read and the writing had been a little more urgent and excited (to match the tone of the story) it probably would have been a 5-star read. As it was, I enjoyed it overall, but a lot of times I was listening to it just so I could finish it and move on to the next book, not because I was captivated or eager for the story.

Christina Baltimore 

I finished it ... finally. It is slow and I put it down so many times. It's another book where I like the ideas behind the plot but the execution was just so slow. I didn't think I would finish it but I did.

Elad Schulman

Wow. 

All the characters in this book were amazing. I loved the relationship between both Dai and Jin, and also Dai and Mei Yee. The plot developed in ways I couldn't imagine, and the ending was so satisfying. This was really, really good.

The Walled City

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