Akwaeke Emezi

This is a compulsive read, one I inhaled in one summer sitting, instantly drawn into Feyi’s world where she’s attempting to bring herself back to life five years after the death of her husband. It’s a book about life after grief and all the possibilities that come from that kind of rebirth. It’s a beautiful and vibrant story, but it’s also an incredibly messy story full of desire and destruction. My favorite stories are those about broken people and broken relationships trying to heal, and this one has all of that gritty rawness: “‘He loved people being messy … he said it was one of the best things about being human, how we could make such disasters and recover from them enough to make them into stories later’” (185).

If you need another summer read, this is one I’d recommend. Besides being super steamy (you don’t have to get further than the first line for full on steam), it mostly unfolds in a tropical, island setting. It’s also full of rooftop parties and summer flings and cooking and creating art. While it definitely has summer vibes, it’s not a light read—there’s lots of heavy themes and uncomfortable character choices—but there’s nothing I’d change about it, making this a five-star read for me.… (meer)

3.75. This novel is reaching for so much and playing with such interesting stuff. It is immersive and vivid and sometimes genuinely cracked open the ontological framework my brain spends most of its time in in really interesting ways. I have some qualms about its success as a novel, as that specific kind of storytelling, that unit of art. To be fair, that is definitely one of the things Emezi deliberately deprioritized--I'm just not sure it's quite for me. I liked this a lot but wanted to like it more, maybe.… (meer)