Riot Baby

by Tochi Onyebuchi

Hardcover

Published May 12, 2020 by A Tom Doherty Associates Book.

ISBN:: 978-1-250-21475-1

(10 reviews)

Ella has a Thing. She sees a classmate grow up to become a caring nurse. A neighbor's son murdered in a drive-by shooting. Things that haven't happened yet. Kev, born while Los Angeles burned around them, wants to protect his sister from a power that could destroy her. But when Kev is incarcerated, Ella must decide what it means to watch her brother suffer while holding the ability to wreck cities in her hands.

Rooted in the hope that can live in anger, Riot Baby is as much an intimate family story as a global dystopian narrative. It burns fearlessly toward revolution and has quietly devastating things to say about love, fury, and the black American experience.

Ella and Kev are both shockingly human and immeasurably powerful. Their childhoods are defined and destroyed by racism. Their futures might alter the world.

2 editions

Books That Burn reviewed Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi

Review of 'Riot Baby' on 'Storygraph'

No rating

It’s told in chunks, creating at feeling of jagged edges and snippets of a story. I liked it at first and then got to the <spoiler>back-to-back detailed descriptions of birth and a stillbirth/miscarriage</spoiler>, which is a hard no for me. Even if the rest of the book is fine I need to stop.