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2treads's review
challenging
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
I really enjoyed this one. Okorafor tends to draw me in with her younger characters. They are more sensitive and aware to me of their societal surroundings and tend to be more self-reflective. Even though the world building doesn't stand on its own here, it is the characters that make this story move, and I feel as if I could do with more Dikeogu and Ejii.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence, Slavery, and Xenophobia
Minor: Murder, Grief, Child death, Child abuse, Torture, Racism, and Racial slurs
adancewithbooks's review
adventurous
slow-paced
3.0
Thank you to DAW and Netgalley for the review copy in exchange for an honest review. This does not change my opinion in anyway.
Like Thunder is the sequel to Shadow Speaker in which I saw great things but it did not manage to grab me. I struggled with the same things in this book. I can see what Okorafor wants to do but the book never grabs me.
In this book we follow Dikéogu, the boy that Ejii meets during her travel in the previous book. This book is set up in two different sections. The first half is all about what happened with Dikéogu after the ending of Shadow Speaker. What was his path so the speak. Initially filled with rage for slavery and those that wronged him, the aftermath of that brings him in a town where he meets a girl who manages to settle him. I think he managed to feel a sliver of happiness there.
The second half of the book is more of a continuation of the plot from the first book. The covenant breaks and something comes to our side of the portal, sucking people dry of their soul. Dikéogu searches out his old friends to figure out how to stop this.
Again, what I struggled here the most with were the characters and some of the writing. I managed to settle into the first half and found a new appreciation of Dikéogu. But I hate that he found something for himself and that had to be axed for the plot and for him to be able to get together with Ejii at the end of the book. Which was one relationshp that was incredibly forced. There was more interesing tension between Dikéogu and Arif on the page than there ever was between Dikéogu and Ejii.
Sometimes I felt that I was skimming the surface of a story, being dragged along with all these events. But never finding myself immersed in it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Murder, and Slavery
Moderate: Abandonment and Child abuse
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