A review by nightoscphere
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

adventurous challenging dark hopeful reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

when i say this book had me fucking GAGGING like idk... i cant even tell u why this book had me gripped but it did!! even if i didnt fuck with any of the men in this entire book (mwita on VERY FUCKING THIN ICE), it was such a good ride i simply couldn't put it down!! i love the way magic works in this world and how unabashedly human it is — our teen protagonists & co kill, have sex, and fight and aren't (permanently) shamed for acting like teens in a fucked up post apocalyptic magical sudan! this is the first adult fantasy book ive finished in a long time where i didn't feel like the worldbuilding was lackluster, where the prose didnt bore me to tears and the characters had some meat to their bones! it wasn't convoluted (like so many white fantasy stories are 🙄), the use of words i didn't know didn't take away from my reading experience, and i wasnt bothered by it's pacing, like you really need to sit with onye's journey we cant just skip to the action!

i was a bit confused by the end but after reading some (very poor interpretations of this book on reddit) i got it and really appreciate that ofc for the woman who does not fear death, death would not be a limitation! i need time to sit with it ofc, but whether or not onye is alive doesn't matter to me (at least for now) bc what does matter is that a sorceress like her is gonna find a way to connect to the ones she loves!! and i hope she does, i hope she's chilling w/ binta, luyu, mwita & their child, i hope her mother visits in between her lessons w/ aro. i also love that daib's end is worse than death — he's forever fucked up by mwita, can't do magic without sacrificing his health/life, AND every single woman has powers!! he just has to sit there and watch his daughter's legacy on the face of each n every woman he walks past — nuru, okeke, or ewu — and know that if he hadnt been such a sick bastard all these years ago he never would've fucked around with the wrong one and found out!!
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