Analysing the books in the series, we estimate that the reading level of The City of Palaces is 7th and 8th grade.
Readability Test | Reading Level |
---|---|
Flesch Kincaid Scale | Grade 7 |
SMOG Index | Grade 9 |
Coleman Liau Index | Grade 8 |
Dale Chall Readability Score | Grade 5 |
The estimated word count of The City of Palaces is 145,855 words.
A person reading at the average speed of 250 words/min, will finish the book in 9 hrs 44 mins. At a slower speed of 150 words/min, they will finish it in 16 hrs 13 mins. At a faster speed of 450 words/min, they will finish it in 5 hrs 25 mins.
The City of Palaces - 145,855 words | ||
---|---|---|
Reading Speed | Time to Read | |
Slow | 150 words/min | 16 hrs 13 mins |
Average | 250 words/min | 9 hrs 44 mins |
Fast | 450 words/min | 5 hrs 25 mins |
for The City of Palaces
In the years before the Mexican Revolution, Mexico is ruled by a tiny elite that apes European culture, grows rich from foreign investment, and prizes racial purity. The vast majority of Mexicans, who are native or of mixed native and Spanish blood, are politically powerless and slowly starving to death. Presiding over this corrupt system is Don Porfirio Díaz, the ruthless and inscrutable president of the Republic. Against this backdrop, The City of Palaces opens in a Mexico City jail with the meeting of Miguel Sarmiento and Alicia Gavilán. Miguel is a principled young doctor, only recently returned from Europe but wracked by guilt for a crime he committed as a medical student ten years earlier. Alicia is the spinster daughter of an aristocratic family. Disfigured by smallpox, she has devoted herself to working with the city’s destitute. This unlikely pair—he a scientist and atheist and she a committed Christian—will marry. Through their eyes and the eyes of their young son, José, readers follow the collapse of the old order and its bloody aftermath. The City of Palaces is a sweeping novel of interwoven lives: Miguel and Alicia; José, a boy as beautiful and lonely as a child in a fairy tale; the idealistic Francisco Madero, who overthrows Díaz but is nevertheless destroyed by the tyrant’s political system; and Miguel’s cousin Luis, shunned as a “sodomite.” A glittering mosaic of the colonial past and the wealth of the modern age, The City of Palaces is a story of faith and reason, cathedrals and hovels, barefoot street vendors and frock-coated businessmen, grand opera and silent film, presidents and peasants, the living and the dead. Winner, International Latino Book Award for Latino Fiction, Latino Literacy Now Second place, International Latino Book Award for Historical Fiction, Latino Literacy Now Finalist, Gay Fiction, Lambda Literary Awards Honorable Mention in Drama, Latino Books into Movies Award, International Latino Book Awards Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association of School Librarians Outstanding Book, selected by the Public Library Reviewers