I loved Freshwater, so I thought I was going to love this. Not so much!

The writing felt more standard, less expressive than Freshwater. The plot also felt more standard, like a family drama or mystery. Somewhere past halfway, I guessed that Vivek was dressing as a woman and that Osita had brought her back undressed to hide that. So that reveal was anti-climatic for me. It also honestly felt a bit gross for it to be withheld and used as a shock?? I didn’t feel good about that, but I don’t identify as genderqueer, so I can’t really say if that’s offensive. Plus the author is gender nonconforming, so what do I know. What I will say is that it didn’t work as a “reveal” to me. I’d rather it have shown up in the book earlier as we learned about Vivek/Nnmedi.

Overall, I still enjoyed the story and will read more by Emezi.

Favorite quotes:

He was the one leaving me alone with my mother, who felt like a hammer instead of a person.

I could feel the shame like a shadow in my chest, but it was faint, insignificant. I didn’t care. I didn’t care. I would do it again, all of it, for him, always for him.

But if that pleasure was supposed to stop me from being a man, then fine. They could have it. I’d take the blinding light of his touch, the blessed peace of having him so close, and I would stop being a man. I was never one to begin with, anyway.

“We can’t keep insisting he was who we thought he was, when he wanted to be someone else and he died being that person, Chika.”