Reviews

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…

fertilepress's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

slewis_city's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.75

silodear's review

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dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No

2.5

I’m sad about how disappointed I am with this second novel. I waited over a decade to read it. Book one is enjoyable and exciting and fun! This one simply was not. It felt rushed and I didn’t find Dikeogu to be very likable and so many things just didn’t really make sense. A bummer of a book. Three stars for effort and for completing the duology.

plantingneurons's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

elizafiedler's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

katnortonwriter's review

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

Here’s the thing: I usually enjoy Nnedi Okorafor’s writing, but I struggled with this one. In general, her writing style is somewhat spare, almost terse. The Desert Magician’s duology has this kind of random, eclectic Alice In Wonderland energy, in which strange and marvelous things happen at random and without foreshadowing. Between the somewhat chaotic events and the bare-bones style, I had a difficult time getting invested in the characters or the story.

This second installment takes a darker turn than the first book. I liked what the story had to say about dehumanizing and othering people who are different, and about modern-day slavery and mass production. I’m not giving this book a middling rating to suggest that it was inherently mediocre, but it was not a great fit for me, in large part because of the style and structure.

I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley prior to this book’s release, but ended up reading it in hardcover after the fact, for whatever that’s worth. 🙂

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