Jens reviewed Binti: The Complete Trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor
Review of 'Binti: The Complete Trilogy' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
Such a cool premise - a teenaged girl is the first of her people from Earth to attend an intergalactic university. She basically sneaks away from home and on the way, things start to happen.
And the plot is definitely something else - lots of things happen, many of them beyond my prior imagination, alien species with peculiar properties show up, and Binti goes on a very special journey of her own. Not bad.
Unfortunately, I enjoyed reading these three novellas and one short story much less than I had hoped. Too many conflicts, even MAJOR ones, are resolved in just a few lines or paragraphs. Feuds end after a brief chat. Shocking news are believed and accepted without any proof. Plotlines finish with "deus ex machina"-style plot device- solutions pop up that were never around before to magically save the day. Bits of mythology and spirituality are info-dumped over …
Such a cool premise - a teenaged girl is the first of her people from Earth to attend an intergalactic university. She basically sneaks away from home and on the way, things start to happen.
And the plot is definitely something else - lots of things happen, many of them beyond my prior imagination, alien species with peculiar properties show up, and Binti goes on a very special journey of her own. Not bad.
Unfortunately, I enjoyed reading these three novellas and one short story much less than I had hoped. Too many conflicts, even MAJOR ones, are resolved in just a few lines or paragraphs. Feuds end after a brief chat. Shocking news are believed and accepted without any proof. Plotlines finish with "deus ex machina"-style plot device- solutions pop up that were never around before to magically save the day. Bits of mythology and spirituality are info-dumped over several pages. All if this made for a very choppy reading experience, as if I was just thrown parts of a narrative that fit together, or don't. And whatever happened to "Show, don't tell"? There is a lot of telling in these stories.
This was really unsatisfactory to read - I did not feel as if I was taken seriously as a reader. Maybe longer forms would have been more pleasant in this regard; novels instead of novellas.
I also found it hard to keep track of all of Bintis new-found properties and, well, gadgets? By the end of the third story, so many concepts had been introduced to me that I was just very confused when the book ended, and I had a lot of questions left.
My personal pet peeve: Binti has a strong cultural connection to a clay-based mixture she applies to her skin and hair and it plays an important role in the plot. It is so important to her that this otjize is literally mentioned on every page... I wish this was shown in a different way that felt less repetitive.
It is possible that all of this is "a feature, not a bug" - that the confusion and the wild plot development are intended to convey a particular meaning. Regardless of whether that is the case, I did not particularly enjoy reading these stories.
I did really like Nnedi Okorafor's novel [b:Lagoon|18753656|Lagoon|Nnedi Okorafor|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1383619801l/18753656.SY75.jpg|26643213], so it is possible that I had more trouble with this format, rather than story itself.
