Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor, 544 pages.
Lazlo Strange is an orphan turned junior librarian, a position which comes with no prestige in Zosma, but does allow him full access to the stories he loves. His favorite of these stories are those of the lost city of Weep, which produced wonders and disappeared centuries ago, and whose name he felt stolen by magic when he was a child, and replaced with the new name of Weep. So when representatives of the city arrive at the library looking for people to help them solve a problem that they refuse to describe until they get to Weep Lazlo has to finds a place in the delegation.
The city is nearly as wonderful as he imagined, even if it is haunted by the shadow of the oppressive gods that the people killed fifteen years ago. A past that is less dead then the people think, as five half-mortal children of the slaughtered gods live in hiding in the floating citadel above the city. When Lazlo comes to know one of them, Sarai, in his dreams they start to dream a way forward for the city together, even past centuries of accumulated hate and fear.
I remembered that I really liked this book when I first read it a few years ago, but I hadn't remembered why until I reread it. This book is brilliant. It's descriptions are lush and the world is richly imagined. It's also extremely tragic, and the way that Taylor layers tragedies and always seems to find a way to make them just a little deeper and more painful is very impressive. I think a lot of what makes this book so powerful is how the painful, terrible parts and the beautiful, hopeful parts are constantly laid right next to each other. Overall a very underrated book, more people should read it.
(Also there's fantasy etymology, and I always love fantasy etymology.)
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