Content levels
Trigger warnings
Positive tags
Hero archetypes
Heroine archetypes
Protagonist archetypes
Tropes
Themes
Synopsis
In Verity's world, nanotech plagues decimated the population after an initial renaissance of utopian nanotech cities. Growing up on an isolated farm, she finds her happy life changing course when Blaze, the only young man in the community and Verity's best friend, is shot. With Blaze's body wrapped in a nanotech cocoon, Verity sets off on a quest to the Enlivened City of Cincinnati. It is a place of legend, where huge bio-engineered bees carry information through the streets and enormous nanotech flowers burst from the tops of strange buildings. It is the place where Blaze might be brought back from the brink of death. But Cincinnati is a city of dreams turned into nightmares, endlessly reliving the fantasies of its creator, a city that Verity must rule--or die.
Is Queen City Jazz appropriate for my child?
Suitable for most readers 16 and up.
Contains moderate violence (shooting, life-threatening situations), post-apocalyptic plague themes, and bio-horror imagery of nanotech transformation. Complex philosophical themes about consciousness and reality may challenge younger readers.
What to know going in
This book has moderate violence, mild sexual content, and mild language. Content notes include death, violence, and plague/epidemic (see the full list above).
Who'll love this
Teens will be drawn to Verity's desperate quest to save her friend in a strange, dangerous city where technology has run wild.