Onyesonwu is an Ewu, a child of hatred. Her mother is a
dark skinned Okeke and her father was a yellow-brown skinned Naru who raped her
mother. She lives in a world where the Great Book justifies the enslavement and
subjugation of the Okeke by the Naru and fuels brutal enslavement, abuse and
genocide of the Okeke that has driven her mother to the east, away from the
fighting, to live in an Okeke town.
But, as an Ewu, even the Okeke revile her as a child of
shame and violence, doomed to perpetrate that violence herself. Onyesonwu is
also an Eshu – a shapeshifter – and a gifted potential sorceress but even
trying to meet that potential is hemmed in on every side because of her blood
and because of her gender.
With anger and passion, Onyesonwu and Mwita, a fellow Ewu, challenge the restrictions placed upon her, demand the respect and position she deserves and ultimately wins friends and training –albeit both heavily coloured by the prejudice she faces. Unable to tolerate the hatred and the killing, Onyesonwu turns her eyes back to the west, at the genocide’s heart, and is determined with her few friends to stop it, though it is a long journey through many hostile places. By magic or will, with a thin thread of prophecy for hope, she will find her father and end the killing.
This is a story about growth in many ways. Onyesonwu’s
journey from happy childhood, difficult coming of age, then her resolve no
longer to live with the world that she’s in and a determination to change it.
Through the book we see her learn and change and grow, from a small child to a
powerful sorceress, she is shaped by the world around her and it’s fascinating
(but slow) to see.
We see how prejudice – both against her Ewu mixed blood
and as a woman – shape her. How it both enrages her and constantly blocks her –
and drives her to change things. She has a lot of passion and anger – some of
which is directed destructively, as one would expect, but most is driven to
push down the barriers and insist that she not be held back or stopped because
of her race or gender and her determination, even her violent determination, to
battle against those who treat her poorly because of it. Sometimes through
demanding they treat her properly, refusing to accept their words and actions
and sometimes through revenge.
The story has some really strong characters that grow
along with Onyesonwu with both Mwita and Luyu growing and changing with their
own experiences and learning. Even though they are secondary characters, they
are still grown and developed rather than just being extension of Onyesonwu.
The world, is also fascinating and well built – the mythological
history that was created with Ani and the Okeke and Narru and how that was
exploited to justify the genocide. The magic system is deeply involved with
many different forms and rules but coming back to the same basic foundation
over and over. It’s rich and consistent and fascinating – definitely one of the
better depictions of magic I’ve come across
This book did an extremely good job of analysing
marginalisation extremely well. The treatment of the Okeke, the use of religion
to justify slavery, abuse and genocide, the idea of racial superiority, the
abuse of the Ewu, the blaming of children for their parent’s actions, the
scapegoating of marginalised people. We even looked at how even friends can
carry severe prejudice and bigotry, even when they know they’re wrong. We also
looked at how people from hated minorities have to be careful with their own
behaviour, how their actions reflect on the whole group and how they’re
constantly expected to fulfil stereotype.
There was some extremely good analysis of a misogynist culture
as well. Many people dismiss Onyesonwu because she is a woman. She is
repeatedly denied training, considered overly emotional, uncontrollable and
generally incapable because she’s a woman. A woman on her period might as well
be producing super-powerful acid rather than blood, the revulsion with which
she’s regarded. Women’s sexuality is considered dirty and dangerous and a woman
needs to be controlled through female circumcision and magic because she can’t
be trusted with her own sexual agency
But all of this is challenged – and not just for
Onyesonwu, but for all the women. They fight against the assumptions, they challenge
them, they denounce them, they decry how wrong they are and they reverse many
of them, at least for themselves. This is a way to show prejudice and bigotry
without endorsing and perpetuating it.
Unfortunately, this book had some really large pacing
issues, for us. She spent a lot of the book growing up and much of the rest
travelling – and while at many points in that story she learned and grew and
the character and development were added to and improved, at many others we
just seemed to be mired. Mired in travel, mired in Onyesonwu losing her temper
again and being told to calm down by Mwita (which happens a lot), mired in
bickering, mired in yet another example of prejudice against Ewu (and sometimes
we had scenes that just existed to show that – which was fine, except it was repetition).
I think one of the primary stalls in the plot is that
Onyesonwu set off on her journey to the west with an entourage. If it had just
been her, Mwita and Luyu – maybe one or two of the others, it would have worked
better. Instead we also had to drag along her other 2 friends and one of her
friend’s husband – whose names I can’t even remember. A huge amount of time is
spent with all of these characters bickering. In fact so much time is spent on
them bickering and sniping, that when we had the big emotional loss moments
with some of them, I found that I couldn’t feel the emotional impact because I
was more relieved that one of the sources of constant irritation were removed.
They did serve a purpose in the book on several occasions to reinforce the
prejudice Ewu people face and reminded us the important issue that even friends
and loved ones can still carry prejudices around with them, even against the
people they loved. But that didn’t need all of them.
I wanted to love this book. I liked the story, the
concept was interesting, the world fascinating, the protagonist well developed
and the messages carried by it were powerful. But the pacing was so off, felt
so mired and so distracted by extraneous description and the story took so long to actually reach
all its salient points that I wanted to put the book down. Without it, it would
be a 3.5 fang or 4 fang review – but with those problems I just can’t, it was
too much work to read and not nearly enough fun.
It lets it down which is a crying shame, because I have
so much good to say about this book, so much praise, but I can’t get past how hard
it was to read, how not fun it was and the most wonderful messages in the world
can’t redeem a book that we just found boring.
