Sistah Samurai is an Action Fantasy novella that is an homage to the anime, Afro Samurai, and centers Black women in the narrative.
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Books in their short form in most instances aren't for me. It takes a lot of skill to do with few words what most struggle to do with many. There's a real skill in introducing characters, world and plot and wrapping it up in a crisp hundred-or-so pages. Conversely, my personal taste leads me to desire time almost as much as this mastery of the craft. By spending more time with the world and characters, the bond naturally becomes more powerful, multiplied by the magnitude of the writing.
Early on Sistah Samurai felt like it was taking every effort to introduce as many different Japanese things as possible in a way I found somewhat distracting. This shows best in the first introduction of the swords “My ride-or-dies, my katana and wakizashi, rode shotgun in pink lacquered sheathes on my hip.” and second “I unbelted Fuck-Around and Find-Out, my katana and wakizashi, and placed the blades along the bench beside me”. As a reader, I don't feel like I'm being trusted to understand through context even when there was a picture describing these terms before the first chapter.
This doesn't last long too long, but still irks me and comes back less thickly later. Once we're past that the blending of cultures is great. The personality of the writing is where it shines brightest through use of colloquial dialect. But the blended world of Japanese and black culture is a close second. The actual cohesiveness of the world is a bit shaky. The shamisen player in the ramen joint, but walkmen and CDs exist? Not impossible, but felt out of place. Normally I'm a bit put off by heavy leaning on nostalgia and references, but because Sistah Samurai wears them so readily on its sleeve, they don't bother me too much here, but can sometimes feel style-over-substance.
Overall, the package works more often than it doesn't and despite any issues I may have I enjoyed the read.
