Your reaction is pretty similar to mine. The details of the world are great (with the exception of the explanation of the historicak background, which I thought was weak but easy ignorable). The characters are interesting. The end didn't really work for me. Not only did it not seem to really follow from the preceding action, as you note, but it seemed kind of anticlimactic. The details have faded a lot with time, but my recollection is that it was a fairly temporary sort of treaty with everyone sort of reserving the right to re-think things later. Which is realistic, no doubt about it, so I have no argument with it on those grounds, but it didn't feel right for this book.
Regardless, I enjoyed it, and I am glad you did as well. I would read her next book except that I understand it is much, much darker.
Yes, it's a three-year peace treaty. I think my biggest issue, like you say, was a sense of anti-climax. The story felt much more about Ejii growing into her powers and coming to terms with her feelings about her family and Jaa than about multi-dimensional politics.
That being said, the strengths were SO strong. (I never care about the explanations for why everything ended up mutated and magical. They are uniformly unconvincing because it is always unconvincing to have a real-life cause for "everything is mutated and magical." My feeling is that the less said about the cause, the better.)
I will read Who Fears Death and report. Um, eventually. It sounds dauntingly dark. Akata Witch, however, is another YA and is rapidly zooming up my to-read stack.
Yes, it's a three-year peace treaty. I think my biggest issue, like you say, was a sense of anti-climax. The story felt much more about Ejii growing into her powers and coming to terms with her feelings about her family and Jaa than about multi-dimensional politics.
Exactly. I wanted Ejii to do something with her powers to resolve the situation.
That being said, the strengths were SO strong. (I never care about the explanations for why everything ended up mutated and magical. They are uniformly unconvincing because it is always unconvincing to have a real-life cause for "everything is mutated and magical." My feeling is that the less said about the cause, the better.)
Oh, definitely. I was referring to the nuclear war thing that preceded that, actually. But it wasn't terribly relevant to anything.
I will read Who Fears Death and report. Um, eventually. It sounds dauntingly dark. Akata Witch, however, is another YA and is rapidly zooming up my to-read stack.
Oh, I forgot she wrote another YA. I hear Who Fears Death features a
( ... )
There's only one rape in Who Fears Death; I actually *didn't* find it as dark as I was led to believe. The world the characters live in is dark, but the text itself is not, if that makes any sense? I actually agreed totally with Farah Mendlesohn's review at Strange Horizons -- which unfortunately is spoiler-filled -- in believing that though rape and genocide begin the action of the book, they get pushed to the side in the narrative itself in favor of a fairly typical coming-of-age story. Granted, not typical at all in that both the protagonist AND the band of friends are girls. . . but the serious issues that people always mention when talking about Who Fears Death (rape, genocide, female genital mutilation) ended up feeling a bit sidelined.
Comments 5
Regardless, I enjoyed it, and I am glad you did as well. I would read her next book except that I understand it is much, much darker.
Reply
That being said, the strengths were SO strong. (I never care about the explanations for why everything ended up mutated and magical. They are uniformly unconvincing because it is always unconvincing to have a real-life cause for "everything is mutated and magical." My feeling is that the less said about the cause, the better.)
I will read Who Fears Death and report. Um, eventually. It sounds dauntingly dark. Akata Witch, however, is another YA and is rapidly zooming up my to-read stack.
Reply
Exactly. I wanted Ejii to do something with her powers to resolve the situation.
That being said, the strengths were SO strong. (I never care about the explanations for why everything ended up mutated and magical. They are uniformly unconvincing because it is always unconvincing to have a real-life cause for "everything is mutated and magical." My feeling is that the less said about the cause, the better.)
Oh, definitely. I was referring to the nuclear war thing that preceded that, actually. But it wasn't terribly relevant to anything.
I will read Who Fears Death and report. Um, eventually. It sounds dauntingly dark. Akata Witch, however, is another YA and is rapidly zooming up my to-read stack.
Oh, I forgot she wrote another YA. I hear Who Fears Death features a ( ... )
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment