Okoye to the People: A Black Panther Novel

Man I was really looking forward to this but this one just didn't work for me. I think the problem for me is that, the concept here is to show a young Okoye before she was the total badass of the movies/comics. But in order to make her more relatable to young readers it's just kind of weird vibes, like why are the Dora Milaje sending her to New York without fully preparing a cover story, so that she has to keep improvising something that doesn't quite make sense?? MESSY, the Dora Milaje are better than that even if Okoye is young!! And like it happened like...5 times. She's a student. She's a model. She's a bodyguard. She is not prepared to answer literally any questions about this. Whew. It's not like she ran off in a hurry and didn't have time to prepare. This was like, an honored mission. There was training. There was a long flight that she could have read a little file folder on. Help her. Please.

Also the idea of Okoye having her eyes opened to poverty among Black communities in the US is a little jarring because–and I know these books aren't necessarily operating in the same universe as the movies, but–it's really kind of a rehash of the Oakland scenes of the Black Panther movie, except those were much more effective than this book IMO.

Also the central plot of an evil white woman developing this bananas drug that gives people pyrokinetic powers but the powers only affect buildings and not people? So the neighborhoods get burned down so they can be gentrified? Like I get it as a metaphor but it's such a weirdly specific drug that I was just like, what?? Like sure I can buy all sorts of wild superhero shit but that was just...so strange and weirdly toothless. Why not just have the evil white lady not care if Black people burn to death instead of going out of your way to invent weird new fire. How does it work.was like, a little too convoluted for me. Like I'm all for calling attention to the problems of gentrification but the specifics here were like.......what.

Anyway, I know Ibi Zoboi is a great writer and I've enjoyed non-Marvel books of hers, and I love Okoye's character in the movies and comics, but for me this was 2 great tastes that did NOT go great together. Wah!

And I don't know, teens might just be excited to have a book about Okoye but I kind of feel like the teens who love her in the movies are going to have a similar confused reaction here, maybe I'm wrong but it just felt off to me.