SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Akata Woman by Nnedi Okorafor: https://t.co/KvBevttLOS
— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) May 20, 2022
Short Review: 8 out of 10
1/3
Short Review (cont): Okorafor's Nsibibid Script African-Inspired YA Fantasy series continues with this third book, which gets darker & closer to the real world as Sunny and her friends get closer to adulthood & must travel through worlds to right an ancestral wrong. Very good
— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) May 20, 2022
2/3
Akata Woman is the third book in Nnedi Okorafor's award winning Nsibidi Script series of young adult fantasy novels, which began with Akata Witch and continued with Akata Warrior. The series follows Sunny, an African albino teen whose family returned to Nigeria from the US, as she discovers she has the power of juju, and learns about the magical world of juju with her three teenage friends, all of whom have families that actually know about the magic. There she discovers her own power, learns about herself and her spirit face Anyanwu, and with her friends Sunny finds herself facing off against dangerous Masquerades and juju using powers to cause harm. It's a very enjoyable African myth inspired fantasy series, even if I haven't quite loved it as much as say the typical Hugo Voter.
Akata Woman continues the story of Sunny as she grows closer to adulthood (hence the title), and has to deal with the consequences of her actions and those of her ancestors, and as a result it's what feels like a much darker and difficult tale. But it still works, even as it puts Sunny and her friends through the ringer and further confronts them with real world events more than any prior book in the series (up through COVID). There's one minor issue in the plotline regarding Sunny's abusive father that I didn't like, but otherwise, this is yet another winner of a book in this series, and if you liked Akata Witch or Akata Warrior, this will also be a book for you.
Trigger Warning: Physical abuse by a parent to a child.
Sunny has gone through a lot since the time she first learned of her Juju powers as a Leopard Person in Nigeria - facing off against the evil Masquerade Ekwensu and his forces, having her spirit self Anyanwu doubled, such that Anyanwu can wander away from her and maintain her own existence...something that horrifies most Leopard people. Her situation with her family, none of whom are Leopard People and thus don't understand her activities, is still testy, especially with her harsh father. But at least there's her three friends, Chichi, Sasha, and Orlu, with whom she's actually begun to date, and Sunny's learning of Juju which continues to be tremendously rewarding.
But as Nigeria begins to suffer unrest, which Sunny's non-magical family gets involved with, Sunny finds herself tasked with a deadly magical task: for the spider deity Udide, who aided them before against Ekwensu, has called in their debt, and wants Sunny to find and return a ghazal, a magical power stolen from her by Sunny and Chichi's Nimm ancestors and people. And to find the ghazal, Sunny and her friends will have to go on a Road through different magical realms with dangers they could never have imagined.
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Akata Woman continues the story of Sunny, as she and her friends once more go on a quest to stop a powerful being - this time Udide, the spider deity who weaves the narrative - from doing great harm to the world. It again features Sunny and her friends learning to use new Juju powers, getting rewarded with the magical chittim currency for it, and having to grow and learn about themselves in order to get through the trials and tribulations put before them.
That said, and I haven't reread the prior books to say this with super confidence, this book features the most confluence between Sunny's world and our own, as Sunny and her family deal with political unrest in Nigeria, the effects of the unrest and tragedies in the past such as the Nigerian/Biafran Civil War, to the point of even touching on COVID in the books final pages. And the story works really well to use these aspects to show real world themes - so the Ghazal was taken by the Nimm for the purpose of saving their people from a threat....but was then the subject of violence due to greed, something that costs Chichi's mother dearly; the story deals with ancestral sins that Sunny and Chichi (with the boys' help) must atone for; and of course the story deals with how dealing with major life problems rarely has some easy magical (or Juju) solution, etc. We also see magical worlds that contrast with our own, like one that is seemingly perfect - although not completely - in which the world features people living largely in harmony with everyone being given what they need by magical plants rather than featuring people having to destroy the world to gain necessities.
And well Sunny and her friends are strong protagonists to guide us through this story as they struggle with their own issues, like their tasks to grow into the next level of mastery of Juju, or more seriously, for Chichi to deal with the family/people who have mistakenly cast her mother and her out, and for Sunny to deal with her own family and her own conflict and frustration over her internal conflict with her spirit self Anyanwu. The African myth inspired world works generally really well to keep things interesting and strong as they go through a journey that allows them to grow to another new level, up through a satisfying ending in most respects.
Really only one respect is a problem, which is a subplot in which Sunny deals with her father being abusive - even getting to the point of striking Sunny once when she gets back too late due to her magical life. The story tries to make a deal about the fact that her father's reaction isn't simply derived from misogyny as Sunny expects, from a tragic part of their past she was unaware of, and as such Sunny even forgives him before he apologizes to her in the end....except that really doesn't justify the acts at all? Like it's still a horrible act, and the book tries to act as if it's a bit more understandable due to events Sunny wasn't aware of, and no it's not. And that bothered me a bit.
Otherwise, Akata Woman is a fine continuation of this series, and if you enjoyed the prior novels, you'll enjoy this. I still don't love it quite as much as others do, but this is still pretty good YA.
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