Daveed Diggs

I found this book not only incredibly interesting (such an unusual and creative base, and yet also so immediately immersive) but lovely and also painful.

Yetu's pain with her life and her people is telegraphed clearly, and it drew me in to her hopelessness, anger, and eventual grasp at escape - and yet the story also twines the reader into how Yetu is so badly torn even when she does escape the fate that has been killing her.

As I read more and got even further wound up in the story - both Yetu's and of all the wajinru, I truly desperately wanted a happy ending, but also dreaded where the ending would actually take me. I was, in the end, delighted with the perhaps-not-perfect but incredible resolution that managed to remove the torturous worst from Yetu as Historian . . . and to bring Oori with her, never to be left behind again.… (mehr)

It was a really original premise, but for me the book was just ok. I realize that this requires a healthy suspension of disbelief, and usually that doesn't pose a problem for me with sci-fi and fantasy, but my brain just required too much explanation that wasn't there. (It doesn't help that my degree is marine biology, so I just kept trying to nitpick things, which just pulled me out of the story too much.) There are tons of people who will probably enjoy this a lot, but it just wasn't there for me.… (mehr)