Загрузка
Сведения о книге
Who Fears Death
Автор: Nnedi Okorafor
Текст читает Anne Flosnik
Активность, связанная с книгой
Начать прослушиваниеОписание
International award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor enters the world of magical realist
literature with a powerful story of genocide in the far future and of the woman who reshapes her world.
In a post-apocalyptic Africa, the world has changed in many ways, yet in one region genocide between tribes still bloodies the land. After years of enslaving the Okeke people, the Nuru tribe has decided to follow the Great Book and exterminate the Okeke tribe for good. An Okeke woman who has survived the annihilation of her village and a terrible rape by an enemy general wanders into the desert hoping to die. Instead, she gives birth to an angry baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand. Gripped by the certainty that her daughter is different-special-she names her child Onyesonwu, which means "Who Fears Death?" in an ancient tongue.
From a young age, stubborn, willful Onyesonwu is trouble. It doesn't take long for her to understand that she is physically and socially marked by the circumstances of her violent conception. She is Ewu-a child of rape who is expected to live a life of violence, a half-breed rejected by both tribes.
But Onye is not the average Ewu. As a child, Onye's singing attracts owls. By the age of eleven, she can change into a vulture. But these amazing abilities are merely the first glimmers of a remarkable and unique magic. As Onye grows, so do her abilities-soon she can manipulate matter and flesh, or travel beyond into the spiritual world. During an inadvertent visit to this other realm she learns something terrifying: someone powerful is trying to kill her.
Desperate to elude her would-be murderer, and to understand her own nature, she seeks help from the magic practitioners of her village. But, even among her mother's people, she meets with frustrating prejudice because she is Ewu and female. Yet Onyesonwu persists.
Eventually her magical destiny and her rebellious nature will force her to leave home on a quest that will be perilous in ways that Onyesonwu can not possibly imagine. For this journey will cause her to grapple with nature, tradition, history, true love, and the spiritual mysteries of her culture, and ultimately to learn why she was given the name she bears: Who Fears Death?
Активность, связанная с книгой
Начать прослушиваниеСведения о книге
Who Fears Death
Автор: Nnedi Okorafor
Текст читает Anne Flosnik
Описание
International award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor enters the world of magical realist
literature with a powerful story of genocide in the far future and of the woman who reshapes her world.
In a post-apocalyptic Africa, the world has changed in many ways, yet in one region genocide between tribes still bloodies the land. After years of enslaving the Okeke people, the Nuru tribe has decided to follow the Great Book and exterminate the Okeke tribe for good. An Okeke woman who has survived the annihilation of her village and a terrible rape by an enemy general wanders into the desert hoping to die. Instead, she gives birth to an angry baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand. Gripped by the certainty that her daughter is different-special-she names her child Onyesonwu, which means "Who Fears Death?" in an ancient tongue.
From a young age, stubborn, willful Onyesonwu is trouble. It doesn't take long for her to understand that she is physically and socially marked by the circumstances of her violent conception. She is Ewu-a child of rape who is expected to live a life of violence, a half-breed rejected by both tribes.
But Onye is not the average Ewu. As a child, Onye's singing attracts owls. By the age of eleven, she can change into a vulture. But these amazing abilities are merely the first glimmers of a remarkable and unique magic. As Onye grows, so do her abilities-soon she can manipulate matter and flesh, or travel beyond into the spiritual world. During an inadvertent visit to this other realm she learns something terrifying: someone powerful is trying to kill her.
Desperate to elude her would-be murderer, and to understand her own nature, she seeks help from the magic practitioners of her village. But, even among her mother's people, she meets with frustrating prejudice because she is Ewu and female. Yet Onyesonwu persists.
Eventually her magical destiny and her rebellious nature will force her to leave home on a quest that will be perilous in ways that Onyesonwu can not possibly imagine. For this journey will cause her to grapple with nature, tradition, history, true love, and the spiritual mysteries of her culture, and ultimately to learn why she was given the name she bears: Who Fears Death?
Об авторе
NO![]()
Обзоры
The premise: ganked from BN.com: In a post-apocalyptic Africa, the world has changed in many ways, yet in one region genocide between tribes still bloodies the land. After years of enslaving the Okeke people, the Nuru tribe has decided to follow the Great Book and exterminate the Okeke tribe for good. An Okeke woman who has survived the annihilation of her village and a terrible rape by an enemy general wanders into the desert hoping to die. Instead, she gives birth to an angry baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand. Gripped by the certainty that her daughter is different — special — she names her child Onyesonwu, which means “Who Fears Death?” in an ancient tongue.From a young age, stubborn, willful Onyesonwu is trouble. It doesn’t take long for her to understand that she is physically and socially marked by the circumstances of her violent conception. She is Ewu — a child of rape who is expected to live a life of violence, a half - breed rejected by both tribes.But Onye is not the average Ewu. As a child, Onye’s singing attracts owls. By the age of eleven, she can change into a vulture. But these amazing abilities are merely the first glimmers of a remarkable and unique magic. As Onye grows, so do her abilities — soon she can manipulate matter and flesh, or travel beyond into the spiritual world. During an inadvertent visit to this other realm she learns something terrifying: someone powerful is trying to kill her.Desperate to elude her would - be murderer, and to understand her own nature, she seeks help from the magic practitioners of her village. But, even among her mother’s people, she meets with frustrating prejudice because she is Ewu and female. Yet Onyesonwu persists.Eventually her magical destiny and her rebellious nature will force her to leave home on a quest that will be perilous in ways that Onyesonwu can not possibly imagine. For this journey will cause her to grapple with nature, tradition, history, true love, and the spiritual mysteries of her culture, and ultimately to learn why she was given the name she bears: Who Fears Death?My Rating: 7 - Good ReadI will warn it's not a book for everyone: Okorafor tackles some dark, uncomfortable subjects in this book, and it's more than enough to make some people squirm. Still, it's very well worth the read, as the magic system is interesting, and the stakes are high with an ending that turns usual convention on its head just a bit, enough to make you wonder. It's a good read, and I think I finished this book in two days. I'll be happy to check out more of Okorafor's work, which is good, since I have her YA novel, The Shadow Speaker, sitting on my shelf somewhere around here. Aside from uncomfortable subject matter (which I think people should face, because as the book stresses, ignoring a problem does not make the problem go away), the ending is a bit rushed, hence why this book is simply good instead of excellent. Still, it's quite the page turner. An engaging read. I definitely look forward to more from this author.Spoilers, yay or nay?: since this is an Alphabet Soup book club pick, there will be spoilers. If you haven't yet read or finished this book, DO NOT read the full review linked below. As always, comments and discussion are most welcome. :)REVIEW: Nnedi Okorafor's WHO FEARS DEATHHappy Reading!
Onyesonwu is the child of rape, an Ewu, the daughter of an Okeke woman and a Nuru man. The Okeke have always been subjected to the Nuru, and the history of violence between these people has taken its toll. As a young woman, Onye recounts her childhood and growth into the one who's going to change everything.The first words drew me in immediately and though a couple of times my interest flagged it was more to do with my inability to sit down and read for long stretches than any real flaw in the storytelling. Onye and her friends are fantastic characters. Though the story is violent and difficult, it's powerful and compelling, defying easy categorization into a particular genre just as Onye herself doesn't fit in a simple box. I can't believe I've never read any of this author's work before; it certainly won't be the last.
This is not a usual genre for me, so for me to give this a high rating, it had to be good. The author draws from a variety of archetypes of African and Western tradition to create a futuristic African setting that not only has a compelling storyline, but made me think about contemporary issues such as the place of women in religion and African society, the fate of African societies torn apart by race hatred, the effects of environmental degradation on human societies. Well worth moving out of my comfort zone for this book.
This read like a YA novel in a--not sci-fi, not fantasy, not post-apocalyptic, though people have called it all those things--but a really vividly imagined alter-Sahel, and so at the same time I extended patience to the gossipy teeny rendering of the social dynamics of the little band on their way across the desert and the characters (absolutely characters, not people, collections of traits, as much as in Dickens, and the art suffers for it as little as in Dickens) and lost myself in the world in a way that would have been harder if it had worn prognostication or great inventiveness on its sleeve. It had the pacing and power of myth (alongside the gossipy teeny rendering!), and images I'll remember, and I'd watch the hell out of the movie.
Who Fears Death is a sci-fi/fantasy novel and tells the story of Onyesonwu, a girl in post-apocalyptic Sudan. She is the child of rape, her mother being a member of a persecuted ethnic group, her father a member of the oppressive ethnic group. Because of this, she is always somewhat of an outcast, but as she grows up she begins to learn she has magical powers and a special destiny. She becomes a trained sorceress and works to overthrow her father and the oppressive regime he represents. I really wanted to like this book. It felt fresh and different and feminist, and I tried really hard to get into it. I just couldn't really do it. The book deals with a lot of really heavy issues, many of which are very graphically described. Female genital mutilation, genocide, and rape as a weapon of genocide all play prominent roles in the novel. These issues are all relevant to recent conflicts in Sudan, and I was really intrigued to see how the author would weave them into a post-apocalyptic Sudan full of magic and sorcery and how it could be a commentary on current/recent events. I never really felt like a satisfying connection was made. Also, the society in the novel was very much shaped by the people's belief in the stories and teachings of "The Great Book," and I waiting for a more clear commentary on religious fundamentalism and the power of stories and religion to shape people's attitudes. While this was obviously a theme, it didn't play out as strongly as I was hoping. This is not a genre that appeals to me in general, so I think I was mostly just turned off by all the magic and shape-shifting and mysticism.
I found this book depressing and relentlessly bleak. I kept going after a few incidents of intricately-detailed physical and emotional violence, but the protagonist's circumstances only got worse and worse. I did not like any of the characters, and the dialogue felt boring and inauthentic to me.
Due to the nature of its content, I could not bring myself to finish this book.
Due to the nature of its content, I could not bring myself to finish this book.
Ever since finishing it, I've been wondering about the theme of this book, and for me, it came down to religion. This was mostly subtext... but the fact that whether or not the Great Book was re-written was so relevant- albeit not usually a conscious concern- leads me to this conclusion- with ramifications for many of our current world's "Great Books".But- while the ideas woven into this novel are chewy and ones I will be thinking on for a long time- mostly when reading it's a powerful and beautifully written book about a reality that is sometimes lovely, and sometimes extremely harsh.The societies and magical systems do not have anything in common with the usual fantasy tropes- that drew me in. The cultures were well-thought-out, too, in both their support and their harshness.The characters- well, they worked really well in the story, but to me they did npt seem fully rounded. Perhaps this was inevitable given the first-person narrative, where our narrator was preoccupied with things other than drawing her companions as fully-formed characters- especially given her youth. However, while some of the tertiary characters felt very alive to me, the secondary ones were less successful.Nonetheless- this is a fascinating, though sometimes brutal- fantasy novel that is not at all like the usual ones. I highly recommend it for the adventurous fantasy reader.
Totally unlike anything I have ever read, fantasy or post-apocalyptic. Very interesting and philosophical, but some parts are rather slow.
Who Fears Death is a fine enough book, but it failed to meet the expectations all the rave reviews set. Parts of the book are undeniably original, but more of it isn't.Onyesonwu - literally Who Fears Death - is a child of rape, and shunned by her community. But as she gets older, magical powers start to manifest, and they will set her on a journey through post-apocalyptic Africa to confront her father. I feel in some ways my disappoint with this book was a result of wrongly-set expectations. Reviewers had written about Okorafor's incredibly prose. I thought it was functional, nothing more, and I thought her background in YA literature was readily apparent. Critics had spoken about the originality of the setting. I can't help by 'originality', they actually meant 'African', as I personally felt the setting was a pretty standard post-apocalyptic setting - smattering of magic aside - and the world-building was a bit inconsistent. Okorafor does very well with the main village, but other parts of the world felt a bit threadbare, and I never really felt it drew together as a whole. There were also some basic credibility issues with inconsistent application of technology. Onyesonwu's characterisation is good; the rest of the small cast vary somewhat. Her love interest is well done, but other travelling companions are more stereotypes than people, and they don't get much to do in a very, very simple narrative. This narrative also betrays the YA background of the author - it's very basic, a simple travelling quest, really. Worse, there's a few issues structurally, as two thirds of the book takes place before the heroine leaves her village, and the end is terribly rushed and a bit incoherent. I know this sounds like a litany of complaints, but really Who Fears Death is fine. It's an average coming-of-age fantasy. My problem is that I was expecting something extraordinary, and it's really not. Especially compared to what people like Paul Park are doing in the field.
An excellent combination of African folk mythology and science fiction, anchored by great characters and some truly amazing writing.
I could not put this book down. I loved that it took common high-fantasy tropes and transferred them to post-apocalyptic Africa. I loved the writing and I loved the central character.
Unfortunately, the book stumbled in the second half with some weird pacing issues, the failure to place logical limits on the heroine's growing power, and an ending that fell flat for me (although I realize some people loved it).
Despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed this read and recommend the book. I will be looking for anything Okorafor publishes in the future.
Unfortunately, the book stumbled in the second half with some weird pacing issues, the failure to place logical limits on the heroine's growing power, and an ending that fell flat for me (although I realize some people loved it).
Despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed this read and recommend the book. I will be looking for anything Okorafor publishes in the future.
This was a pretty difficult review to write. I still feel like there is a lot I haven't unpacked from this story. I may come back and revise it. Also, there are plenty of unmarked spoilers.Onyesonwu is the mixed-race daughter of a rape with hair and skin the color of sand, despised by both her mother's and father's people, who discovers that she possesses great magical powers: shapeshifting, resurrection of the dead, and the ability to transport herself into an alternate reality.This story is set in a post-apocalyptic Sudan, so far in the future that the people have forgotten their history and only know what is written in the Great Book, a religious text all children have to study. Only a few vestiges of modern civilization remain--some computers and handheld electronic devices, as well as water capture stations that enable people to live in the desert. (At one point, Onyesonwu and her companions take shelter from a storm in a cave where they discover a mound of dead computers and other electronics, which frightens them for unspecified reasons, hinting at an ingrained fear of the trappings of our modern civilization.) Onyesonwu's mother's people, black Africans called the Okeke, have been murdered, subjugated, and enslaved by Arabic Africans called the Nuru, with the blessing of the Great Book. White people seem completely unknown to either race--perhaps mostly killed off in whatever apocalypse happened?--and Onyesonwu only meets one white character, a sorcerer-mentor whose skin color completely mystifies her. Another race of nomadic red people live in the desert in the center of a gigantic sandstorm; they practice magic routinely and seem to have no modern counterparts. Onyesonwu's mother was brutally raped and impregnated by a Nuru soldier. Onyesonwu discovers later that her biological father is a sorcerer who will lead a genocide of the Okeke. She undergoes female genital circumcision at the age of 11, believing that this will make her family more accepted in her village. This causes her to involuntarily transport into an alternate plane, where she attracts her father's attention. Onyesonwu undergoes training in the magic arts so that she can protect herself from him, and eventually learns that she is prophesied to defeat the genocide.Onyesonwu is an angry young woman. She is angry at the enslavement of the Okeke based solely on their race, and angry at the Okeke for subjugating themselves to slavery. She is angry at the treatment she and her lover Mwita receive because they are mixed-race outcasts, or Ewu. She is angry at the treatment of women by everyone--rape, prostitution, enforced celibacy of unmarried women via the FGC rite, the refusal of the village sorcerer Aro to take her on as a student at first just because she is female. Onyesonwu's story is a subversion of the Christ story. She is prophesied to free her people from enslavement, and she knows that she will have to sacrifice herself as a result. She embarks on her own hero's journey to confront her father, taking her lover and best friends with her as traveling companions. She enacts several miracles along the way, but these are miracles of vengeance and wrath, not healing and teaching. She blinds an entire village. In another village, she makes all the men disappear and impregnates all the women. She is stoned to death as she has foreseen, but once her body is dug up and reburied, she is able to avoid her execution and escapes from the desert land to a distant paradise.Because of her anger, Onyesonwu is not an easy savior to admire or like. Not only does she lose her temper frequently and unleash her great powers on everyone around her, but she also is impatient and snappish with her friends and often elects to run away instead of confront conflict. While she comes to regret some of her decisions, such as undergoing the circumcision rite, she doesn't show remorse for many of her deeds. Her anger is part of her, and justified. Probably she would be unable to accomplish what she does without it.But Onyesonwu's anger--women's anger--often makes us uncomfortable, and we are unused to seeing it as the focus of literature. That, and many other things, can make this a difficult book to read. Onyesonwu turns her critical eye on everyone around her. No one is an innocent in this world--except perhaps the mysterious red tribe, where Onyesonwu experiences a period of learning, growth, and relative tranquility. This book is steeped in magic, unfamiliar cultural references, and an ambiguous history. Sometimes we have to read between the lines; other times, we have to let events flow without questioning the logic too closely. Opening ourselves up to this story may be difficult, but the experience is powerful and rewarding.
Really enjoy this author's writing. And the narration was superb. I have also read Akata Witch. Her stories are so interesting and imaginative. She also weaves in some real social and political issues. Even though some of the material is gritty and difficult to read, I have to commend the author for bringing attention to these issues, especially that of female circumcision, and the social and cultural pressure to comply. Ms. Okorafor is especially gifted with character development and describing complicated relationships between these characters. I'd love to see a sequel to this book, but then the main characters all perished at the end. Or did they.........?
An amazing piece of afrofuturism! Highly recommend for lovers of magical realism too.
Amazing, powerful, feminist, strong female protagonist, magical, beautifully written. Must read.
Insanely good book. First few chapters felt slow then the next few felt harsh/hard to stomach and violent but as the plot woven together it not only made sense but opened up worlds upon worlds upon worlds of meaning. Very biblical also.
The story is more dark fantasy than Post-apocalyptic. There is no reference to the outside world beyond the existence of computers and the author's reference to Sudan as a country. A sorceress of prophecy has a difficult life as the child of rape and mixed race, and she becomes as violent as her world in order to change it.
I almost loved this novel. I was fully here for the post-apocalyptic Africa setting, and the burgeoning feminist-ism of the main characters, and the hits against racism and misogyny. I love a good coming-of-age quest novel, and some meaty dystopia always makes me want to read more.It just felt like something - something - was missing. I never quite felt like I understood or tracked with some of the key relationships in the novel. I wanted more development of some of the secondary characters, that seemed to play a major part in Onye's journey. And the ending felt....well, it seemed a bit too neat and tidy that a quest that took 375 pages and the deaths of several main characters could be resolved in one chapter. This novel had the spark of something great, but for me it never quite arrived. I love the author's ideas, however, and will definitely be reading more of her work.
This book grabs you by the throat on page one. It’s the story of Onyesonwu, an outcast who possesses strong magical abilities and a lot of rage. She works to control both (with varying success) and goes on a quest to change the world as she knows it. See, she is Ewu, her mother being an Okeke woman who was raped by a Nuru man. In this post-apocalyptic world, Okekes are treated as slaves by Nurus. Onyesonwu hopes to change that.While this is a story of a Chosen One, she differs from the trope by not being perfect. Onyesonwu has flaws and sometimes they make her falter. She also has love and friends who support her in varying degrees. While the reader may not always understand Onyesonwu’s choices or agree with them, it always makes for an interesting journey. The story is dark and violent, yet there are hints of beauty and hope throughout. There’s a prequel called The Book of the Pheonix and now I need to read it too. I want to know so much more of this world.
Who Fears Death is a dark, speculative novel set in Sudan at an unspecified point in the future. We know it's the future because computers are relics and people rely on 'capture stations' to draw clean water out of the air. We follow the story of Onyesonwu, the child of rape and a sorceress who is determined to put an end to the race-based conflict between the Okeke and Nuru people. Along the way, she is supported by the love of her life, Mwita, and three female friends. This novel certainly grabbed me from the very beginning, a rather astonishing scene centred around the death of Onye's father when she is just 16. I loved the first person perspective and the back-and-forth retelling of her journey from a child brought up in the desert to an adult with magical powers. The darker themes of the story address not just rape and racism, but also the power dynamics between men and women in this futuristic world, mainly through Onye's treatment by other male sorcerers (including her own partner). Parts of the story can be hard to read, but they're also absolutely necessary to get the most from the novel. It was interesting - and sad - to read the author's note in the end about her being inspired by a real-life news story about violence in Sudan between Arab and African groups.I thoroughly enjoyed reading Who Fears Death. I think it's not quite a five-star read for me because it felt like the action overtook the character/personality development of the main group of characters towards the end, and I also think there were some issues that were left unresolved and that I would have liked to have seen wrapped. But this is still an excellent novel, and so refreshing for this fan of fantasy writing to read something worlds away from the traditional white narratives that I'm used to seeing.
Although it took me ages to pick this up to start reading, I enjoyed it when I did. A different setting for a fantasy / sci-fi although at heart it is still a basic quest story.
Nnedi Okorafor is known as a YA author, but this is her first adult novel. And it’s very adult, with some difficult scenes of rape and violence.This is not my typical fare, but I’m glad to have read it. It’s a mixed bag genre-wise, being a fantasy set in post-apocalyptic Africa. There’s a bit of science fiction here, but it’s not well developed and not important to the plot, which is driven by the magical education of Onyesonwu, a “chosen one” character picked to stop genocide. Of particular interest to me were the feminist and African cultural elements. I have no idea how the magic ties into African myth and tradition, but I’m guessing that it does. It was certainly rich and, in the end, rewarding.
Although written some years before "The Book of Phoenix", this novel takes place centuries after the story of Phoenix. Although one need not read Phoenix first, I did feel my reading was informed by having done so. Once again, Dr. Okorafor explores sexism, racism, colonialism and the nature of love, hate, good and evil. A profound book hung on a well-told tale of adventure and coming of age. This writer should be nominated for the Nobel Literature Prize!
For me this is more interesting and original than the Binti books. The characters and setting and culture(s) were intriguing and the magic both clear enough and mysterious enough to keep me wanting to learn more. It could have done without the last two epilogue chapters and been more powerful for it, as having the heroines mastery of her skills, temper, and impulse was the least original aspect of the story. The pacing was a bit jerky and sometimes it was necessary to 'push through', though never painful.
If you think Katniss Everdene is kickass wait until you meet Onyesonwu.Part dystopian fantasy, part traditional folk tale, Nnedi Okorafor's tale of inter-tribal violence, rape and female castration is unshirking in its telling.The book is a quest to put right ancient wrongs, to make reparation, to rewrite a twisted culture's holy book. Onyesonwu is both sorceress and teenager, a woman of incredible power who has to learn how to control that power. The book is about love, about being seen and accepted by those who love you and how that can empower a person to become who they are meant to be. Rooted as it is in African traditions, the magic and fantasy is far more interesting than the swords and sorcery of Western literature. Onyesonwu is a deliciously feisty character as well. You should read it.
Review contains spoilers.Overall, I enjoyed Who Fears Death, and was fascinated to read a modern fantasy novel not rooted in Judeo-Christian mythology. However, I struggled with some of the lack of consequences and resolutions throughout the novel. Especially in one off subplots (ex: when they hide in the cave during the thunderstorm), unsettling and horrifying things are introduced but no explanation is ever offered. These minor incidents don't seem to impact the characters going forward. Only landmark events throughout the plot seem to have a lasting effect on Onye. I also struggled a lot with the way that some of the social issues were dealt with. The female genital mutilation was so horrific for the characters initially, but had a relatively easy fix and didn't go on to impact the characters after they'd been healed. Characters who were sexist or racist were generally sexist or racist at the end of the book, or they were cured by magic. There wasn't much nuanced middle ground there.Despite some of these problems, I was invested in the story and cared about what happened to Onye. I would recommend this as an interesting read, even if things don't get tied up as neatly as they could have been. However, much of the content of this book is not for the faint of heart, and I would probably not recommend this to children under 15.
There is a lot to like in this book. I really enjoyed the perspective and the subject matter. Nnedi Okorafor uses a post-apocalpytic Sudan as a setting to reveal some very powerful observations about the way we treat each other.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
Who fears death is an (apparently) post-apocalyptic African fantasy novel. I say apparently, because I wouldn't have known if the blurb hadn't said it was post-apocalyptic. Only at the very end did I see some evidence that there had been something like an apocalypse, and even then I wasn't sure if it really was one. It's quite sad really, because the book had enough aspects that could be, well, should be associated with an apocalypse. It had rape, female genital mutilation and genocide. Unfortunately, those aspects have been every-day life relatively recently in places in Africa, without an apocalypse. Well, this makes it sound like this must have been a depressing book to read. Fortunately it wasn't. I really enjoyed the African setting and the lack of white characters (although I'm still not quite sure what color the Nuru are). I also liked that the main character is female, that she makes friends, some of which are female too, and some of which stay with her and remain loyal to her to an astonishing degree. Onyesonwu does meet with a great deal of misogyny, but she is strong enough of will that she doesn't let it stop her, and she even changes a few people's minds. Still, I wasn't too fond of the autocratic attitude of some of her teachers, even when they knew she was some kind of savior to their people. Overall, I did like the book, but it also left me feeling a bit dissatisfied. Especially towards the end, I had the feeling that Onyesonwu should have grown more. Yes, she grows in power, but I would have liked to see her direct her power more, I would have liked to see that she hadn't only learned HOW to use her power, but also WHEN and in what way. Right after she has her greatest increase in power, she rushes off to a silly contest that turns out to be dangerous in the extreme and causes a lot of trouble. She seems to be driven by impulse. If it had been a version of intuition, I would have been ok with it, but her actions seem more childlike than subconsciously informed. I have no objection to her being emotional; the assertion of her male teachers that emotions are dangerous is ridiculous. If she would have used her emotions as a strength, I would have loved it. Instead she comes across as immature, and her boyfriend needs to pull her out of trouble too often. Still, during the first three quarters or so, I was really engaged and was continuously looking forward to continuing my reading. After that, I started to feel a little annoyed. Fortunately the story climaxed soon after, and the annoyance got drowned in all the excitement. If it hadn't been for my lingering dissatisfaction, I probably would have gone for 4 stars. As it is, I can't give it more than 3.
I loved many things about this book, fantastic post-apocalyptic worldbuilding, fascinating characters, and a captivating storyline, full of complexity. The writing is clean, giving Onyesonwu a clear voice as she narrates her life story. Onyesonwu is a wonderfully interesting character, full of both anger and compassion, able to strike out and provide healing, desiring revenge and yet not wanting to engage in the violence she sees around her. Likewise, her companions and teachers (there are many) are complicated too, with a variety of motivations and assumptions based on traditions or superstitions. The story includes descriptions of rape, genocide, female circumcision, stoning, child soldiers, and other real-world violence that is horrifying (and sometimes hard to read), and yet handled with honesty, precision, and care. In the face of all this horror, the story could have easily turned into a downer, but hope, love, and friendship are weaved into the story as well. The story is powerful, deeply resonant, and one to think about long after having put it down. An amazing work of art.I will definitely be reading more by Nnedi Okorafor.
Onyesonwu is the outcast child of a mother who cannot speak above a whisper. Her skin and hair clearly mark her as Ewu, a child of both Nuru and Okeke, a combination despised by Nuru and Okeke alike. Her gender makes the only sorcerer in the village unwilling to teach her. And her shapeshifting and nigh-uncontrollable magic make her neighbors fear and hate her. After her father dies and her magical powers manifest themselves at his funeral, she flees into the desert to avoid mob violence and to seek her nemesis: the man who raped her mother, sired her, and has been trying to kill her ever since. She is accompanied on her quest by four friends, her true love, and a herd of free-spirited camels.
This is an ambitious but frustrating work. Ambitious because it tackles head-on issues of rape, child abuse, child soldiers, female genital cutting, adolescent sexuality, genocide...Okorafor never flinches. But frustrating because the main character is pretty unlikable, the plot is your classic bildungsroman, and the pacing is terrible. Onye has a wide, bewildering array of magic powers that she seems to forget about just when the plot requires her to. After three hundred pages of exhaustively described meals and screamed dialog, she solves genocide in the last, like, two pages? And then there are something like three epilogues? It's not great.
Spoilers from here on out: Onyesonwu is not a particularly moral person. She forces entire towns (children included) to relive her mother's rape. She strikes another town (again, children included) blind. She explodes an entire, occupied building. She kills every fertile man, and forces every fertile woman to be pregnant (with what, I'm not sure). When her best friends come to her for help, she turns into a vulture and flies away, rages at them, or dismisses them. Once in a while, she'll actually have a conversation with one of her supposed bffs, but mostly she's either screaming at them or deriding them in her head. I'm not sure how much we're supposed to agree with Onyesonwu. She does terrible, awful things to unnamed villagers, but then lauds herself for not killing her bio-father (the architect of all the attempted genocide of the Okeke). And all the elderly sorcerers are like, "wow, well done, you're so awesome." What?
And I have no clue what actually happens at the end. Onye rewrites the Great Book, which will apparently stop Nuru/Okeke violence somehow, then gets captured and executed (as was prophesied). The person she was narrating this to even digs up her corpse and re-buries her in the desert. But then two epilogues later it turns out she turned into a Kponyungo, killed her guards, was never executed, and in fact flew away to the Great Greeny Jungle? And then the epilogue says all the Nuru waiting to execute Onye are still waiting for her so they can execute her? Even though they already did? Argh, it makes my head hurt. To me, it doesn't seem clever, it seems sloppy. If she never died, then where did her corpse come from?
Plus, I don't get how her re-write of the Great Book changed anything. So she killed all the fertile men, made all the fertile pregnant, and gave all women magical powers. Great. What on earth is that supposed to do? How would that possibly stop the war between Nuru and Okeke? The book spends so much time talking about who each of her friends is sleeping with that the end of genocidal hatred comes in about three sentences. It's just jammed into the end, as though the author suddenly realized she needed to wrap it up.
I'm disappointed, because I expected to really like this book. As it is, it's so flawed (in my eyes) that I'm giving it 3 stars only out of respect for the breadth and depth of issues and world-building Okorafor attempts here, and not for any engaging writing or story.
This is an ambitious but frustrating work. Ambitious because it tackles head-on issues of rape, child abuse, child soldiers, female genital cutting, adolescent sexuality, genocide...Okorafor never flinches. But frustrating because the main character is pretty unlikable, the plot is your classic bildungsroman, and the pacing is terrible. Onye has a wide, bewildering array of magic powers that she seems to forget about just when the plot requires her to. After three hundred pages of exhaustively described meals and screamed dialog, she solves genocide in the last, like, two pages? And then there are something like three epilogues? It's not great.
Spoilers from here on out: Onyesonwu is not a particularly moral person. She forces entire towns (children included) to relive her mother's rape. She strikes another town (again, children included) blind. She explodes an entire, occupied building. She kills every fertile man, and forces every fertile woman to be pregnant (with what, I'm not sure). When her best friends come to her for help, she turns into a vulture and flies away, rages at them, or dismisses them. Once in a while, she'll actually have a conversation with one of her supposed bffs, but mostly she's either screaming at them or deriding them in her head. I'm not sure how much we're supposed to agree with Onyesonwu. She does terrible, awful things to unnamed villagers, but then lauds herself for not killing her bio-father (the architect of all the attempted genocide of the Okeke). And all the elderly sorcerers are like, "wow, well done, you're so awesome." What?
And I have no clue what actually happens at the end. Onye rewrites the Great Book, which will apparently stop Nuru/Okeke violence somehow, then gets captured and executed (as was prophesied). The person she was narrating this to even digs up her corpse and re-buries her in the desert. But then two epilogues later it turns out she turned into a Kponyungo, killed her guards, was never executed, and in fact flew away to the Great Greeny Jungle? And then the epilogue says all the Nuru waiting to execute Onye are still waiting for her so they can execute her? Even though they already did? Argh, it makes my head hurt. To me, it doesn't seem clever, it seems sloppy. If she never died, then where did her corpse come from?
Plus, I don't get how her re-write of the Great Book changed anything. So she killed all the fertile men, made all the fertile pregnant, and gave all women magical powers. Great. What on earth is that supposed to do? How would that possibly stop the war between Nuru and Okeke? The book spends so much time talking about who each of her friends is sleeping with that the end of genocidal hatred comes in about three sentences. It's just jammed into the end, as though the author suddenly realized she needed to wrap it up.
I'm disappointed, because I expected to really like this book. As it is, it's so flawed (in my eyes) that I'm giving it 3 stars only out of respect for the breadth and depth of issues and world-building Okorafor attempts here, and not for any engaging writing or story.