Sabrina
So, I have made it my goal to read through all of Nnedi Okorafor's works as I have loved everything I've read by her. But... this was the first book to give me pause. We are back in the world first introduced in Shadow Speaker which I loved, but in a different perspective—Dikéogu's. Dikéogu had a terrible past—being sold into slavery. And in Shadow Speaker he found himself and became empowered—both literally and figuratively. But... in Like Thunder, he felt like an old curmudgeon. He had some sentiments that felt disrespectful to burqa wearing individuals and sex workers and I couldn't feel the necessity of including those in the book unless to highlight a dated and unacceptable way of thinking? I know he eventually comes around for various reasons (after seeing that the father of his burqa wearing lover wasn't a controlling machismo and that the sex worker was kind) but it still felt weird to read. Apart from that... the storyline kind of pittered on with a whole section of the story being obscured because the main character blacked out. And the resolution/fight/reclamation of Ginen was very anticlimactic to me. Though the characters remained the same in both books, they seemed unrelated to each other in their mood/sentiments. Sorry to have not liked this one but...
2.5 stars. I loved the way women showed up for each other in this comic and the characterization. But...aside from this, it was a bit painful to read. A little too flowery/elevated/abstract in its focus—but this works for Rivera in her other works (loved Juliet Takes a Breath). America is not for me, but I do recommend if anyone else feels this way as well, to still check out Rivera's work because she is awesome.
Holy bodily hell!! This book is not in fact like squid games unless you are imaging a giant genderless squid playing games with humanity. Yeah, that's not what you thought, huh? I'd say this gave me more Jamaica Kincaid's Girl meets Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground meets Kang and Kodos from the Simpsons. Weird, queer, explicit, and thought provoking; I'm glad I was recommended to read this!
First book of 2024! This book was very honest, informative, and candid with the added fun of cringe from the struggles of being a teen in the nineties. I took off a star because there was a weird gen z angle/lingo thing happening in the first few chapters, but that went away after a few chapters and was overshadowed by the great storytelling along the way. Highly recommend this memoir that also tackles the intricacies of undocumented status and process.
