Book #141 of 2021: Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi This novella follows its protagonist from his birth during the Rodney King riots through childhood, falling in with the local gang, an eight-year prison sentence, and ultimately parole in a near-future still plagued with contemporary social problems, while also featuring periodic glances at his older sister’s …
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Book #105 of 2021: A Universe of Wishes: A We Need Diverse Books Anthology edited by Dhonielle Clayton I love how works like this aim to spotlight authors and characters of under-represented backgrounds in literature, but for me as a reader, the YA sci-fi and fantasy stories in this collection are generally more good than …
Book #145 of 2020: Beasts Made of Night by Tochi Onyebuchi (Beasts Made of Night #1) This debut novel from Nigerian-American author Tochi Onyebuchi has an interesting concept of an underclass of magical sin-eaters who assuage the consciences of their society’s wicked nobility, but the plot is pretty slow and I struggle to ever understand …
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Book #78 of 2020: War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi (War Girls #1) This #ownvoices sci-fi novel is an amazingly brutal piece of Afrofuturism, sort of like Black Panther by way of Mad Max: Fury Road. Inspired by the Nigerian Civil War (as experienced by author Tochi Onyebuchi’s mother), it tracks two teenage sisters who end …
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