Tag: Binti

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 3/30/25

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

This week: new music from 2025—both released this year and overheard before a Soccer Mommy show.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 3/30/25

“Triumph of a Heart” – Björk

I’ve finished the Sonic Symbolism podcast, and all it’s left me with is a rabid desire to do a deep dive of the rest of Björk’s albums. Medúlla is enticing as it’s the next one chronologically (even though I’ve given up on listening to her albums chronologically), but also because of the uniting concept behind it. Inspired by primal, prehistoric imagery of motherhood, family, and storytelling around campfires, Medúlla was constructed almost entirely from the human voice. Aside from some synths and piano, it’s almost all a-capella, but not in the way that you’d think. Each voice becomes percussion, scattered onomatopoeia, and rising tidal forces that lift something primal from your soul. And every possible voice ends up featuring on this album—Tanya Tagaq (throat singing), Rahzel, Dokaka (beatboxing), and Mike Patton (deep backing vocals that Pitchfork described as “demonic”) all feature in the varied vocal tapestry. I ended up being too busy to write about “Pleasure Is All Mine,” but that song, in its simultaneous feminist ode and playful toying with women’s capacity to be selfless, really does succeed in digging into something innate, almost instinctual within me.

In concept, “Triumph of a Heart” is almost as ridiculous as the music video. (Fun fact: Björk’s cat husband in this video spawned the “I should buy a boat” meme from way back when.) Forming the percussion of the song, alongside Dokaka’s melodic beatboxing, is what can only be described as restrained raspberry noises and sounds that are almost akin to somebody who’s only heard a cat once trying to make cat sounds. Yet it all works in such a familiar yet alien synchronicity that comes together in a way that only Björk can make it. The track is an ode to how music can make you feel and the joy of dancing, a pleasure shared since early humans were able to whack sticks together and harmonize around the fire; maybe it’s an obvious choice for this album, but using only bodily instrumentation is the perfect medium to explore the visceral nature of music and dance, the way that it sometimes vibrates your soul: “The nerves are sending shimmering signals/All through my fingers/The veins support/Blood that gushes impulsively towards/The triumph of a heart.” I always see such sentiments of people undervaluing the arts, even as they consume it by the truckload and think nothing of it; it’s not a viable, useful profession, more fodder for AI and mindless listening. It’s so easy for us to forget that art in all its forms, the same as the need for medicine and food, is innate to us, and has been since we were gathered in the shelter of the first fires.

As a bonus: here’s some behind the scenes footage of the recording of “Pleasure Is All Mine”:

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Binti – Nnedi Okorafor – this novella also falls into that merging of preserving cultures that have survived for thousands of years and alien technology, and it blends into a bizarre, delightful trilogy.

“Honey Water” – Japanese Breafkast

For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) sadly fell under the She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She curse on this blog, which roughly translates to “I wanted to write about at least 2-3 of the singles, but they all ended up landing on weeks where I didn’t have time to write.” Shame, really, because “Orlando in Love” and “Mega Circuit” were silk-drapingly romantic and creepily artful, respectively. Now that I’ve listened to the whole album, at its best, it embodies those qualities, oscillating from semi-autobiographical, tragic stories to some of the more fictional songwriting that Michelle Zauner drew on for Jubilee. She simultaneously leans into the notion of the “sad girl” while critiquing the fact that women are so often pigeonholed into this description (see the title), embroidering her own dramatic melancholy with orchestral arrangements and references to Greek mythology. Though it wasn’t always successful and the end dragged (see: “Men in Bars,” an faux-earnest, ballad-y duet with…Jeff Bridges? Huh?), For Melancholy Brunettes was, for the most part, an artistic leap that was a good 75%-80% successful in its feats of daring. It acknowledges its place amongst the traditionally emotional role of female musicians, but also acknowledges the light that peers in through the cracks (see: “Here Is Someone”—for maximum enjoyment, transition it with “Frosti” by Björk).

“Honey Water” was one of the standout tracks. I never thought of Japanese Breakfast as someone who could necessarily conjure up eeriness. Sure, she’s written plenty about all manner of unpleasant feelings, but I’ve never gotten dread as one of the most prominently featured ones. Zauner’s signature, breathy whisper takes on the feeling of a carnivorous plant laden with dew, ready to ensnare all manner of insects. Yet she’s not the one doing the ensnaring in this song—the narrative, toeing the line between fiction and reality, as her songs often do, speaks of an unfaithful lover repeatedly leaving her for someone else: “The lure of honey water draws you from my arms so needy/You follow in colonies to sip it from the bank/In rapturous sweet temptation, you wade in past the edge and sink in/Insatiable for a nectar, drinking ’til your heart expires.” The dread that Zauner dredges up is more a kind of stagnation, the sinking feeling of seeing the inevitable unfold around you, and yet somehow feeling powerless to move—or leave. The closing refrain, as the guitars rise in a crashing, insectoid drone, echoes Slaughterhouse-Five’s famous tidbit: “So it goes/I don’t mind”; the narrator convinces herself that all of her partner’s unfaithful transgressions are a fact of life. That tired powerlessness is what makes the dread so palpable, the music swallowing her as she mutters the last repetition of her exhausted mantra.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Familiar – Leigh Bardugo – “In rapturous sweet temptation, you wade in past the edge and sink in/Insatiable for a nectar, drinking ’til your heart expires…”

“God Knows” – Tunde Adebimpe

Remember how I was halfway chiding myself for hoping that Thee Black Boltz was just going to be TV on the Radio 2: Electric Boogaloo? Now that “God Knows” is out, I think that might honestly just be what the album is like regardless of expectations. “Magnetic” introduced us to a familiar, nostalgic sound full of energy, “Drop” was the point where Adebimpe seems to diverge, and now we’ve got “God Knows,” which sounds straight off of Nine Types of Light or even Dear Science. It’s giving me some perspective on how much Adebimpe made TV on the Radio—Dave Sitek constructed the scaffolding, but Adebimpe was the heart of it all, without a doubt. Balancing sharp acoustic strumming with synths that ripple and bubble, this track adds to “Drop” in the sense that both songs feel like they’re floating. It fits with the album cover for me—as Adebimpe clings to his geode island in the middle of an undefined void, he’s buoyed through it, like an ocean, propelled by nothing but the endlessly catchy hooks he’s been producing of late. “God Knows” stands out to me as the strongest of the three offerings so far—like “Magnetic,” it’s been sharpened to its tightest point to make indie rock tracks that wouldn’t be out of place 10 or even 20 years ago. Tunde is timeless.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Full Speed to a Crash Landing – Beth Revis – “God knows you’re the worst thing I’ve ever loved/And you’re bad news/But we still got to have our fun…”

“Whole Love” – Wilco

Man, YouTube comments are so funny sometimes. I hope the Latina woman who posted “I love this white song, don’t tell my homegirls I listen to this” is doing okay and still listening to Wilco happily. Wilco really is the great unifier.

Here’s an album that I’ve probably listened to in full, but only remember about half of. The Whole Love soundtracked many a car ride to school or piano lessons and whatnot back in 2011. I even remember popping my dad’s borrowed CD into my old Hello Kitty CD player while I was playing with my Build-A-Bears in my room. That should give you a picture of the kind of hipster child I was, but I digress. The resulting tour was also the first time I saw Wilco—and my very first concert, at Red Rocks at the age of eight. So even if I haven’t mapped it out fully, The Whole Love was integral to my childhood, whether it was watching the music video for “Born Alone” on my dad’s old laptop (I distinctly remember saying that it “made my head spin”) or sitting on my dad’s shoulders on that summer night. Really, it boils down to my dad. Raising me on all that Wilco made me turn out alright, I think.

Back to “Whole Love” in particular. The song already carries a metric ton of nostalgia for me, but it never gets old with any successive playing. As far as The Whole Love goes, it feels like one of the more accessible tracks—it’s classic Wilco, but with the artsy twist that the album presents. There’s a passage in Steven Hyden’s This Isn’t Happening: Radiohead’s ‘Kid A’ and the Beginning of the 21st Century that talks about the significance of album openers setting the tone for the album as a whole. Hyden points to “Art of Almost” as an example—with all of the Thom Yorke-esque synth weirdness, it signals to the listener that this is gonna be the weird Wilco album. That experimental nature leeches into the most “accessible” sounding tracks—like this one. Even as Jeff Tweedy brings his gentle, acoustic sway into fruition, the background can only be described as fluttering—they jitter and judder like the freshly-dried wings of just-hatched butterflies, creating tiny fractals in the background. Yet even if you stripped that weirdness away, “Whole Love” would still be a classic—whether it’s craft or my nostalgia talking, there’s something so innately comforting about the layered harmonies, folded on top of one another like layers of fine fabric.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Heart of the World (The Isles of the Gods, #2) – Amie Kaufman – “And I know that I won’t be/The easiest to set free/And I know that I won’t be the last/Cold captain tied to the mast…”

“Get Away” – Yuck

This song played before Soccer Mommy came on when I saw her a few weeks back, and for a split second, I confused it for some Apples in Stereo song that I somehow hadn’t heard in my childhood. Turns out, there’s probably no Apples in Stereo song that I missed when I was a kid, hence why I didn’t recognize it. (Cut me some slack, it was loud in there…) Yuck doesn’t have the same electronically-oriented whimsy as the Apples in Stereo, but they seemed to branch off of the indie sound of the early 2010’s, with their synth-like guitars, ’90s distortion, and the nasally vocals of Daniel Blumberg. Those guitars were what made me nearly mistake them for the Apples in Stereo, but they’re clearly more students of, say, Sonic Youth or Dinosaur Jr. But they had that sun-soaked, 2010’s indie aesthetic down to a science; even without the yellow filter on their music video, “Get Away” just oozes the sensation of a dream of being on a road with no speed limits while the sun beats down through the windshield. Even as Blumberg laments that he can’t get away, wrestling with negative thoughts, the track speeds along with a carefree freedom, kicking up gravel as it forges its own path. Certainly fits right in with Soccer Mommy’s sound too—she’s got an eye for good indie, that’s for sure….

…and so does the Academy, apparently? You’re telling me that this guy just won an Oscar for his original score for The Brutalist? That’s a connection I didn’t expect to make in this post…good for you, Daniel Blumberg!

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester – Maya MacGregor – “Summer sun says get out more/I need you, I want you/But I can’t get this feeling off my mind/I want you, I need you…”

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (2/4/25) – Death of the Author

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I’ve been a longtime fan of Nnedi Okorafor, albeit on and off—I picked up Akata Witch back when I was in middle school, and then discovered her adult books when I was in high school. Since then, I’ve been a fan of her quirky brand of Africanfuturism. You can imagine my surprise when I found out that Death of the Author was not an addendum to her long sci-fi fantasy canon, but instead literary fiction—albeit, with a dash of sci-fi. Either way, the switch from genre to genre is as smooth as I’d expect from Nnedi Okorafor.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Death of the Author – Nnedi Okorafor

Zelu is on the verge of giving up her dream to be a writer. After a pile of rejected manuscripts and a botched job as a professor, she moves back in with her overbearing, judgmental family as she attempts to get back on her feet. But when a spark suddenly comes to her, she has a bestseller on her hands: Rusted Robots. As she grapples with the price of fame and the mobility—and simultaneous lack thereof—Zelu must come to terms with her own identity as she explores the fabrication of it that the public has created for her.

TW/CW: substance abuse, ableism (external & internalized), loss of a parent, near-death situations, kidnapping

Of all people, I didn’t expect Nnedi Okorafor to take the leap into literary fiction, and after I found out the switch in genre, I didn’t expect to enjoy Death of the Author as much as I did. Thankfully, it’s only really literary in the sense that it’s contemporary, realistic fiction…mostly. The woven tapestry of Zelu’s real life and her creation, Rusted Robots, turned out to be a powerful meditation on the nature of art and identity.

Once again, make no mistake: this is fiction, but it’s not entirely just fiction. The assumption is that it’s a handful of years in the future; Zelu has fairly futuristic, adaptive prosthetics that are still in beta testing, and she tests out an automated cab service that’s been newly introduced to the streets of Chicago. Yet Okorafor takes the same skilled hand that she uses to craft intricate, far-future worlds and translates it into the idiosyncrasies of modern life, from the gauntlet of social media fame (and harassment) to being in the confines of a chaotic, judgmental family. For every character that was introduced, Okorafor matched them with an unforgettable personality, even if they only appeared for a few pages. All of the complex, rapidly fluctuated emotions were depicted with sensitivity, from the highest joys to the deepest pits of anguish and the plentiful uncertainty in between. Even without her talent for worldbuilding, Okorafor is a force to be reckoned with, and Death of the Author is proof.

I was hesitantly optimistic that Okorafor was writing a disabled main character again; Noor was a great novel, but from my memory, there was quite a bit of internalized ableism in the main character that went unaddressed. (However, somehow I didn’t know that Okorafor has experience with disability and was herself temporarily paralyzed, so my bad.) The setting couldn’t be more different for Death of the Author, but Okorafor has certainly stepped up her game as far as writing disabled characters—and part of it is that Zelu is unlikable. More often than not, you can at least sympathize with her, but at times, you can see her for the insufferable, argumentative, reckless stoner that her family sometimes sees her as. Of course, not every disabled character has to be likeable, but her relative un-likeability made some of the novel’s most powerful commentary shine even more. As she grapples with her meteoric rise to literary fame, Zelu’s fans place the burden of her being a “role model” for a number of communities: Black, woman, Nigerian-American, disabled. Being a role model can be powerful, but as soon as people saw Zelu as more of a role model than a person, it disregarded her humanity in an entirely different way. She became an example, not an autonomous being—something that is intimately tied to what many disabled people experience. In that way, Zelu represents a leap in how Okorafor writes her disabled protagonists—not just independent, but human.

I don’t have a ton of experience with meta-fiction—it’s not a matter of me not liking it, I just hardly get around to reading much of it—but Death of the Author pulls it off with ease. If you’re still not convinced that Okorafor’s literary fiction isn’t for you, you’ll at least be tided over by her signature brand of Africanfuturism, complete with the landscape of a futuristic Nigeria, robots, and appearances from Udide. It’s somehow a delightful vision of the future, where types of robots have proliferated across the face of the Earth in the face of the extinction of the human race. It’s threaded into Zelu’s life, yet it’s also a clever distillation of the novel’s themes; Ankara’s struggle with coexisting with Ijele inside of his head, as well as the changing world around him, spoke to the themes of embracing collaboration and the blurry relationship between creator and reader.

Which brings me to the whole “death of the author” part. I’ll admit, the Roland Barthes quote from the (original) “Death of the Author” gave me literary theory flashbacks. But as a grounding concept for the book, I love how Okorafor’s Death of the Author playfully pokes fun at the concept. Here, it’s as though the concept has been subsumed by the publishing industry; instead of taking Zelu’s novel as tied to her heritage and her disabled identity, the world swallows it and regurgitates a whitewashed, Americanized movie adaptation that the public eats up. (“Look what they’ve done to my song, Ma…”) Yet at the same time, Zelu is confronted by readers who insistently pester her, insisting that everything in the novel is fully tied to her identity and selfhood. Death of the Author’s strength is the clarity it finds in the balance. Zelu’s work is intimately tied to her identity, but just as intimately tied to her imagination. Her being marginalized meant that people saw her work as surely being solely about her identity, but that wasn’t the whole story either. (The note in the acknowledgements about Okorafor talking to her daughter about worrying that readers would think that Zelu is her makes the point all the more clear.) In this case, fence-sitting is the most reasonable position I can think of—to consider reader interpretation first and foremost can have fruitful results, but to deny the lived experience veers into foolishness, and vice versa; Okorafor’s embrace of the area in the middle is what made the message so clear. Reading and world-creation is a twin act, created both by ourselves and those who receive our work—it’s not a simple question of one or the other.

All in all, a surprising novel that at first seemed like a left turn, but turned out to be another testament to Nnedi Okorafor’s enduring talent. 4 stars!

Death of the Author is a standalone, but Nnedi Okorafor is also the author of several books for adults, teens, and children, including the Binti trilogy (Binti, Home, and The Night Masquerade) the Nsibidi Scripts series (Akata Witch, Akata Warrior, and Akata Woman), Lagoon, Noor, the Desert Magician’s Duology (Shadow Speaker and Like Thunder), and many more.

Today’s song:

ADORE this album

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (1/9/24) – Like Thunder (The Desert Magician’s Duology, #2)

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

After I finished Shadow Speaker back in December, I was eager to see what the newly published sequel, Like Thunder, had in store. It was finally available at the library recently, and it was one of my first reads of this year. And though it retained some of the issues that Shadow Speaker had, it was still a worthy sequel and end to the duology.

TREAD LIGHTLY! This review may contain spoilers for book one, Shadow Speaker. If you haven’t read it and intend to, read at your own risk.

For my review of Shadow Speaker, click here!

Enjoy this week’s review!

Like Thunder (The Desert Magician’s Duology, #2) – Nnedi Okorafor

2077. Three years after Ejii and Dikéogu saved Earth from the threat of Chief Ette and forced him to sign the truce to bring no harm to the Changed, Dikéogu has realized that the fight is not over. Estranged from his parents and living on his own, he knows that the truce is due to expire, and that the humans are growing more hostile to the Changed by the day. After disaster strikes and puts those that he love in danger, he sets off to find the one person he knows that can help save the day: Ejii. But when they reunite, saving the world—for the second time—is more difficult that either of them bargained for.

TW/CW: genocide, slavery, ableism, murder, death, loss of loved ones

In general, I was still a fan of this book, but strangely, even though a lot of my minor gripes with Shadow Speaker were resolved, they were often filled in with elements that ended up bringing down the narrative. That’s not to say that Like Thunder wasn’t a worthy sequel—it absolutely was, and it was a fitting way to finally end the Desert Magician’s Duology, all these years after Shadow Speaker was initially published.

The worldbuilding was, without a doubt, the strongest aspect of Shadow Speaker, and Like Thunder expanded on it in all the ways that it should have! Through Dikéogu’s eyes, we get to see parts of the Desert Magician world that Shadow Speaker left behind, and they greatly enhanced the ongoing narrative of change and prejudice. Not only do we get an expansion of the effect of what kind of powers possessed by the Changed, we also see the direct effects that being Changed has on people apart from the main characters that we saw in book one. Time was clearly on Nnedi Okorafor’s side here, since she presumably had so many years apart from Shadow Speaker to craft all of the world’s eccentricities, but even if there wasn’t such a large gap between now and then, I have faith that her worlds would have been fleshed out anyway—if there’s one thing that Okorafor has excelled at over the years, it’s crafting a detailed world.

A lot of this worldbuilding contributed to the themes that Like Thunder built up, and it serves as an incredibly powerful narrative about genocide. Now that the three-year treaty between Chief Ette and the Changed has expired, he doesn’t hide the hostility that he’s been waiting to unleash since then. No matter what perspective that it’s written from, genocide is always a difficult and delicate subject to write about, and Okorafor took great care in depicting it unapologetically—it’s brutal, authentic, and horrifying, just as it should have been. In general, I preferred Ejii’s perspective to Dikéogu’s (more on that later), but Dikéogu’s voice was well-suited to handling this kind of subject matter; he had the anger that the subject warrants, and his rage not only fueled his journey, but the emotion behind this depiction.

That being said, I wasn’t the biggest fan of Dikéogu being the main POV character in Like Thunder. Although seeing the effects of the treaty dissolving through his eyes was enlightening and his anger fueled much of the novel (and for good reason), in much of the down time of the novel, I found him to be borderline obnoxious. Most of it manifested in his treatment of a lot of the female characters in the novel—once he reunited with Ejii, he had this attitude that he was still owed her after all these years, and it got on my nerves to no end. I wouldn’t have minded a romantic subplot between the two of them, but Dikéogu’s insistence on being incredibly possessive of her soured the whole thing for me. His perspective was needed to a point, but I felt like he worked better as a side character.

Going off of that, there were a lot of cheap elements in Like Thunder that sullied the narrative for me. When I think of Nnedi Okorafor, I think a lot about subversion—subversion of genre conventions, subversion of tropes, etc. But throughout the novel, there were just so many elements that felt pointless and served no purpose—and were so common that it almost seemed beneath Okorafor to add them in the first place. We get the age-old “killing the main man’s girlfriend for the plot” trope; I think it was meant to convey some of the horrors of the genocide going on, but it was already pretty evident that Dikéogu’s life was significantly changed and he already knew the horrors of genocide firsthand, so there was no point in having that subplot at all, especially since it was blatantly shoved in there to try and advance Dikéogu’s narrative arc. And the love triangle…why? Why? Once we got to that part, combined with Dikéogu’s possessiveness of Ejii, it just felt like filler drama—it didn’t advance the plot at all, and it seemed like a cheap way to generate drama as well. It just seemed like a disservice to Okorafor’s inexhaustible creativity.

All in all, a satisfying conclusion to a solid sci-fi/fantasy duology that excelled in its worldbuilding, but suffered in its use of overused and stale tropes. 3.5 stars!

Like Thunder is the second and final installment in the Desert Magician’s Duology, preceded by Shadow Speaker. Nnedi Okorafor is also the author of Lagoon, the Binti series (Binti, Home, and The Night Masquerade), Noor, Remote Control, and several other books for teens and adults.

Today’s song:

NEW SMILE WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (12/12/23) – Shadow Speaker

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I’ve been a fan of Nnedi Okorafor for several years now, but it wasn’t until about a month ago that I found out that one of her first novels, which originally went out of print, was being reissued with new content and a new cover! (Gorgeous cover, by the way.) I ended up buying it, and though it wasn’t her best (what else would you expect from one of her very first books), but it’s not just a fun ride—it’s a glimpse into an incredibly talented author coming into her own.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Shadow Speaker (The Desert Magician’s Duology, #1) – Nnedi Okorafor

Niger, 2074. In the wake of a nuclear disaster, both humanity and the natural world have developed powers far beyond their imaginations. These Shadow Speakers have been given strange abilities by the aftershocks of nuclear war. Born into this world is 15-year-old Ejii, gifted the abilities of advanced sight and hearing the thoughts of animals. When she was young, her father, a corrupt politician, was assassinated. All these years later, Ejii decides that, regardless of the horrific legacy her father left behind, she must journey out into the Sahara Desert to search for his killer.

TW/CW: murder, beheading, fatphobia

Being a (somewhat) longtime fan of an author and reading their debut or earlier works further down the line is always an eye-opening experience. I was expecting something along those lines when I bought Shadow Speaker the other day, but…man, I really had no idea what I was in for. Shadow Speaker was honestly kind of bonkers, but in the best possible way. Quite plainly, it’s one of the boldest debut novels that I can think of.

Shadow Speaker was Nnedi Okorafor’s first novel (published all the way back in 2008), and it really does feel like a debut. I said eye-opening before because you can see the through lines where Okorafor hadn’t yet hit her stride in terms of writing; in contrast to the tight organization of most of her other novels, we still get chunks of worldbuilding delivered paragraph by paragraph. Her prose has the same bold brightness and whimsical spirit that really stands out as her signature, but it hasn’t been refined as much. And with the re-release this November, despite apparent rounds of editing, there’s still a few things that haven’t aged well from 15 years ago (ex. the villain’s evilness explicitly being tied to him being fat…mmmm, yikes…). All debuts are bound to have flaws, but the latter ones could have probably been edited out. But unlike that, I feel like it’s worth keeping some of the writing as it is—reading this novel was a time capsule into the mind of a younger writer.

And yet, Shadow Speaker is still one of the boldest books I’ve read in a long time, debut or not. Everything about is really and truly nuts, and that was the best part about reading it. Once you get the exposition of Ejii’s post-apocalyptic, magical world out of the way, at no point did I know where this novel was going, and at a certain point, I ceased to even care. There’s the spread of X-Men-like powers caused by a nuclear disaster, a talking camel (also because of the nuclear disaster, how did you guess?), gods and goddesses roaming across the land…you get the idea. Actually, no. You don’t get the idea. And that’s the point of this book, from what I can tell—Ejii and her ragtag band of nuclear magicians don’t know where they’re going either, and that’s where the fun of Shadow Speaker lies.

Over the years, Nnedi Okorafor has proven herself to be an absolute master of Afrofuturism (more specifically Africanfuturism and Africanjujuism, in her words), and the latter (a term that she coined to describe a subgenre of fantasy that is specifically Afrocentric and is inspired by the mythologies of Africa) really describes this novel to a T; although the inciting incident and the introduction of powers has a distinctly sci-fi feel, Shadow Speaker is so clearly fantasy. It’s hard to do that kind of genre-bending so effortlessly in a debut, but already, Okorafor make it look easy. Every element, whatever genres you want to ascribe them to, is blended seamlessly into the world of the Desert Magician Duology as smoothly as stirring together the ingredients of a cake. It’s an impressively distinct world, and despite its flaws, I’m glad this book was brought back into print.

Part of the reason for re-releasing Shadow Speaker is that Nnedi Okorafor just published its intended sequel, Like Thunder, this November. Hopefully I can get my hands on it soon, but it’ll certainly be interesting to see the leap in writing style between the two, given how much time has passed…

All in all, a bold and wild debut from one of science fiction’s most original writers active today. 3.5 stars!

Shadow Speaker is the first book in the Desert Magician’s Duology, followed by the new sequel, Like Thunder, which came out this November. Nnedi Okorafor is also the author of many books for adults, teens, and children, including Lagoon, the Binti series (Binti, Home, and The Night Masquerade), Noor, Remote Control, and many others.

Today’s song:

this song makes me ridiculously happy

That’s it for this Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Monthly Wrap-Ups

August 2023 Wrap-Up 🎂

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Friday, bibliophiles!

I just finished my first week back to school, but after this, chances are I’ll be somewhat radio silent until I can get fully settled into my routine. The only reason that this post is seeing the light of day is that I start working on my wrap-up posts about a week in advance, so here we are.

Let’s begin, shall we?

GENERAL THOUGHTS:

Summer’s officially over, but the weather sure doesn’t seem to think so. Hopefully I won’t have to endure much more of my (long) walk to class in this 90+ degree heat.

That aside, I’ve had a good August, for the most part. My initial “yay, I’m going back to college!” got partially replaced by “oh god, I’m going back to college” closer to move-in, but I’m feeling better now. (The fact that I’m in a much nicer dorm than I was last year certainly helps. It doesn’t constantly reek of weed in here! Huzzah!) I had the opportunity to soak up the last dregs of summer beforehand, at least. I finished up my summer job at the library, bought a catnip toy for my cat for his sweet 16, completed another trip around the sun, and blew part of my paycheck on books to celebrate said trip around the sun. Worth it.

My blogging’s been a tad slower since I’ve been trying to get everything together before I moved in, but I feel like I’ve still been able to be productive. I’ve enjoyed reviewing all of my books this month and putting together graphics and going off about music. And I got in one book tag that WordPress screwed up and I had to recreate from scratch, but it was fun in the end. Once my schedule figures itself out, I’ll get back on the writing train, but for now, I’m mapping out the best route to my class in That One Building on the other side of campus.

Other than that, I’ve just been drawing, watching Only Murders in the Building (for the love of god, can we just stop pairing Mabel with people who have zero chemistry with her 😭). Good Omens (pain, suffering, even), Heartstopper (Lucy Dacus and Wolf Alice paying in the same episode >>>>>>>), and Taskmaster (“you’ve got no chutzpah”), and reveling in the fact that my new dorm has air conditioning. It’s the (not so) small things.

READING AND BLOGGING:

I read 17 books this month! Other than the one stinker in the batch (sorry, The Surviving Sky), it’s been a great reading month in terms of quality and in terms of quantity. Expect some kind of mini-review post for all of the books I bought for my birthday and the books I got as gifts, because they’ve all been fantastic so far.

1 – 1.75 stars:

The Surviving Sky

3 – 3.75 stars:

The World of Edena

4 – 4.75 stars:

A Half-Built Garden

5 stars:

Thi is How You Lose the Time War

FAVORITE BOOK OF THE MONTH: This is How You Lose the Time War – 5 stars

POSTS I’M PROUD OF:

POSTS FROM OTHER WONDERFUL PEOPLE THAT I’VE BEEN ENJOYING:

SONGS/ALBUMS THAT I’VE BEEN ENJOYING:

UNDERRATED ALBUM ALERT
the catchiest
guess who blew through season 2 of Heartstopper in less than a week
too groovy to clean the bathroom to
good lord I love Lisa Germano
this song tickles my brain in the most pleasant way possible
man I need to listen to more P.J. Harvey

Today’s song:

deliciously 90’s earworm

That’s it for this month in blogging! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Books

YA & Adult Reads for Black History Month (2023 Edition)

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Friday, bibliophiles!

February has just rolled around, and in the U.S., the month of February is Black History Month! Ever since I’ve started interacting more with the book blogging community, I’ve been working on reading more diversely, and making posts like these to encourage others to do the same—reading from a single, homogenous perspective is effectively reading in a bubble, when part of what makes reading so special is its ability to give you an easily accessible insight into the perspectives of others.

But this year, the theme of Black History Month is Black Resistance. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how that relates to YA; a good portion YA literature is inherently tied to resistance and anti-authority sentiments. And yes, part of that may be teenagers rebelling against their parents, but it also instills so much power into its impressionable teen audience: even though you’re young, you have the power to change the world. Now that YA has become more diverse in recent years, it has shown that resistance is even more tangible. That tyrannical, dystopian government that the protagonist must defeat can be translated into real-word terms: systemic racism, police brutality, and so much more. Teaching teenagers (and everybody else, for that matter) that they have that power to change the world is such an important thing, because they will grow up knowing that they can enact the same changes as the characters they read about.

That being said, I have been shifting to read more adult books in the past few years, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about some of the amazing books by adult Black authors as well. I’m too lazy to change the graphic, but I’m also going to include some adult-oriented books in here as well.

So with that, here are some of the YA and adult books by Black authors I’ve read in the past year. If you’d like to see my posts from previous years, click below:

Let’s begin, shall we?

YA & ADULT BOOKS FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTH (2023 EDITION)

White Smoke, Tiffany D. Jackson

GENRES: YA, horror, thriller, fiction

MY RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Tiffany D. Jackson has a talent for building suspense, but this is the first time I’ve seen her do a full-blown horror novel—and it was exceptionally chilling!

Noor, Nnedi Okorafor

GENRES: Adult, science fiction, Afrofuturism

MY RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.75, rounded up to ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A wildly imaginative piece of Afrofuturism with a disabled protagonist!

Skin of the Sea, Natasha Bowen

GENRES: YA, fantasy, retellings

MY RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

YA mermaid novels have historically been disappointing for me, but Skin of the Sea gave me hope that a good one is possible—and there can be so many creative twists and perspectives put on it!

Blackout, Dhonielle Clayton et. al. (anthology)

GENRES: YA, fiction, romance, short stories (anthology)

MY RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

A collection of short stories about different romances during a blackout in New York City!

The Final Strife (Ending Fire, #1), Saara El-Arifi

GENRES: Adult, fantasy, romance, LGBTQ+

MY RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

A fantasy with exceptional worldbuilding, an unlikely chosen one, and a sapphic romance!

Vinyl Moon, Mahogany L. Browne

GENRES: YA, realistic fiction, novels in verse

MY RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Half prose and half novel-in-verse, Vinyl Moon is a beautiful story of healing and friendship.

Binti (Binti, #1), Nnedi Okorafor

GENRES: Adult, science fiction, space opera

MY RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Normally, I wouldn’t double up on authors, but Nnedi Okorafor really deserves it here—I still need to finish this series, but it’s so charming and inventive!

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK! What are some of your favorite books by Black authors that you’ve read recently? Tell me in the comments!

Today’s song:

somehow I didn’t know that this song existed until a few days ago, and I haven’t been able to stop listening to it since

That’s it for this year’s list of Black History Month recommendations! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Monthly Wrap-Ups

February 2022 Wrap-Up 🐕

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Monday, bibliophiles!

February’s been a little chaotic, but again, in comparison to last year, it was a good month. I’m leaving it feeling a little tired, but I’m excited for spring!

GENERAL THOUGHTS:

I’ve had a lot of studying to do this month…feels like I’ve had a quiz or a test every week to every other week. Yeesh. But at least I can say that I’ve done well on all of them, so I suppose there’s that going for me.

As far as reading goes, I started the month out with a week-long slump, but once I found some better books, the month improved so much! I read a lot of great books for Black History Month and discovered some new authors that I’d love to read more of. I ended up re-reading a little, and it felt lovely to immerse myself back into the Pioneer duology.

Writing-wise, I’m nearly done editing my second draft! I got in lots of good editing time and polished up a whole lot of my WIP. I haven’t been able to write much in the past few days, but we’re getting to short stories in my creative writing class, which I’m super excited about!

But by far, the highlight of the month was getting Ringo, our new corgi puppy! He’s 8 weeks old, and he’s just the SWEETEST LITTLE GUY 😭

WHO COULD RESIST THAT FACE

READING AND BLOGGING:

I read 21 books this month! More re-reads than I expected (I forgot to connect my Kindle to the wifi while I was away in Florida so I read some of my old books), but a good bunch for the most part. I read a lot of books for Black History Month as well and discovered some new authors!

2 – 2.75 stars:

Beasts of Prey

3 – 3.75 stars:

Home

4 – 4.75 stars:

The Pioneer

5 stars:

Memento

FAVORITE BOOK OF THE MONTH (NOT COUNTING RE-READS): Skin of the Sea – 4 stars

SOME POSTS I’M PROUD OF:

POSTS I ENJOYED FROM OTHER WONDERFUL PEOPLE:

SONGS/ALBUMS I’VE ENJOYED:

the queer joy this song gives me
I haven’t been able to stop listening to this for WEEKS
WHAT AN ALBUM!
what a haunting, absorbing song…obsessed
not my usual vibe, but I can’t get over how atmospheric this one is!
this album took a second listen to fully grow on me, but there’s no doubt there are some gems—like this one! it grew on me afterwards (I was in a weird mood when I listened to it the first time through). still not the same without Graham Coxon, though.

DID I FOLLOW THROUGH ON MY FEBRUARY GOALS?

  • Make another Black History month list—I’ve read so many amazing books by Black authors since last February!—did that! See “Some posts I’m proud of”
  • Review some of the albums that are coming out next month!! (So many!!) rip to Everything Was Beautiful getting pushed back, but both my album reviews from this month can be found under “Some posts I’m proud of”
  • Actually post some art here, if I get the time…it’s about time

well

uh

oops

GOALS FOR MARCH:

  • Read at least 20 books
  • Spend some time with Ringo (of course)

Today’s song:

That’s it for this month in blogging! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Weekly Updates

Weekly Update: February 21-27, 2022

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Monday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

I’ve had a bit of a chaotic week; I visited family in Florida over the long weekend, and we got back home on Tuesday—2/22/22 (happy Twosday, everyone!) My routine was all thrown off for the rest of the week, but now I’m settling back down.

I forgot to connect my Kindle to the wifi while I was away, so most of my reading this week was re-reads—the Pioneer duology and Memento, all of which were just as good as they were when I first read them. I got some more books from the library, and I’m looking forward to reading them all! I also had an unexpected book haul because my English teacher was cleaning out his room and was giving out some of his extra books. Got some poetry and Ray Bradbury in there…

I did a lot of editing while I was in Florida, and I’m in the final stages of cleaning up my second draft! I wasn’t able to do much later in the week because of all the homework I had to make up from the week before, but I think I’m making good progress.

Other than that, I’ve just been bundling up for the freezing weather (nothing like coming from 87 degree weather to 0 degree weather amirite), listening to Think Tank (great stuff!), and eating leftover Valentine’s Day cookies. And we have a new addition to the family—meet our corgi puppy Ringo!

PRECIOUS BOY
BABY BOY

WHAT I READ THIS WEEK:

The Survivor (The Pioneer, #2) – Bridget Tyler (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

The Road – Cormac McCarthy (read for school) (⭐️⭐️⭐️)

Memento (The Illuminae Files, #0.5) – Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

Blackout (anthology) – Dhonielle Clayton et. al. (⭐️⭐️⭐️)

Beasts of Prey – Ayana Gray (⭐️⭐️.75, rounded up to ⭐️⭐️⭐️)

Home (Binti, #2) – Nnedi Okorafor (⭐️⭐️⭐️.75, rounded up to ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

THE ONE, LONELY POST I MADE THIS WEEK:

CURRENTLY READING/TO READ NEXT WEEK:

Devil in the Device (Goddess in the Machine, #2) – Lora Beth Johnson

What We Don’t Talk About – Charlotte Kristensen

A Psalm of Storms and Silence (A Song of Wraiths and Ruin, #2) – Roseanne A. Brown

Today’s song:

a little presumptuous to name a song “Good Song” but nevertheless it is a good song

That’s it for this (short) week in blogging! Have a wonderful rest of your week, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (2/8/22) – Noor

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I’ve realized that Nnedi Okorafor is an author that I end up coming back to frequently—I’ve piled a whole lot of her books on my TBR over the years, and I’m almost never disappointed by what I read, whether it’s Remote Control or Lagoon. She’s an incredible sci-fi and Afrofuturism author, so I jumped at the chance to read Noor. I picked it up last week, and although it had some flaws, it was an endearing and immersive novel!

Enjoy this week’s review!

Amazon.com: Noor: 9780756416096: Okorafor, Nnedi: Books

Noor – Nnedi Okorafor

Originally, AO’s name stood for Anwuli Okwudili. But she prefers the name Artificial Organism; over the years, she has gained several prosthetics and synthetic organs due to a birth defect and a car crash in her teenage years. AO is proud of the person she is, but the rest of the world is not so kind—especially when she’s caught in the middle of a violent conflict. While on the run, she meets DNA, a herdsman and a fugitive who is willing to aid in her escape. But the desert is full of dangers—the biggest of all the infamous Red Eye, said to swallow all who enter it.

jupiter's red spot great red spot gif | WiffleGif

TW/CW: murder, violence, ableism (internalized & treatment of protagonist), catcalling

[looks at this cover] why did I ever question that I like girls

Since I started on the Akata Witch series way back in middle school, Nnedi Okorafor has always been an author that I come back to. Her worlds are consistently filled with rich detail and endearing characters, and Noor was no exception. Okorafor’s newest novel is filled with cutting commentary, immersive worldbuilding, and no shortage of unique characters!

Nnedi Okorafor has a writing style that I adore; her worldbuilding and characters are stellar as they are, but she has such a way with words that everything that I mentioned practically jumps off the page. Her metaphors are often humorous and highly specific, and in Noor‘s case, they served to flesh out the characters and world even more so. Her writing never fails to impress, and Noor is another testament to the fact.

Okorafor’s characters are always endearing, but the protagonists of Noor especially shone! AO was such a unique and complex character; her backstory was more in-depth than a lot of protagonists that I can think of, and the intricacies of her history and personality were delved into without steering towards info-dumps. She and DNA had great chemistry along their journey; they bounced well off of each other both in terms of banter and personality. Even the side characters were given so much care, from the Oz-like Baba Sola to DNA’s cows.

As much as I loved all of these elements, there were a few facets that brought Noor down in some places. I have mixed feelings about how AO’s disability was portrayed; while it was clearly depicted that AO is proud of being disabled (and it’s so cool to see a Black disabled character!), there’s a lot of internalized ableism that goes unaddressed. In particular, the way that AO describes herself as “broken” and “crippled” rubbed me the wrong way. I may not have a physical disability, but the latter of the two has been known as outdated language for quite some time, and beyond that, it seems a little contrary to the part of the blurb about AO embracing herself. It’s…a good start, but it’s got some holes.

In addition, Noor had a lot to say, but it suffered from trying to cram commentary on so many different topics in a relatively short span—only 224 pages for my hardcover copy. All of the commentary was fantastic—corporate greed, environmentalism, the Western world’s misguided belief that all of Africa is “poor” and “diseased,” and how society treats disabled people are just a few of them. Problem is, while all of these are mentioned, there is so little room in the plot for them that they ended up being underdeveloped snippets. 224 pages was enough to sustain the plot, but the commentary, which was clearly meant to be the forefront, was forgotten in the dust, for the most part.

But all in all, a highly creative work from a sci-fi author who never misses. 3.75 stars, rounded up to 4!

Desert GIF - Night Canyon Timelapse - Discover & Share GIFs

Noor is a standalone, but Nnedi Okorafor is also the author of Remote Control, Lagoon, the Nsibidi Scripts (Akata Witch, Akata Warrior, and Akata Woman), the Binti trilogy (Binti, Home, and The Night Masquerade), and several other books for teens and adults.

Today’s song:

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Weekly Updates

Weekly Update: January 31 – February 6, 2022

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

It’s been a bit of a long week for me—very cold, filled with studying, and topped off with a reading slump. But, miracle of miracles, our school district called a snow day on Wednesday AND a 2-hour delay the next day! Freezing as it was (and it got well below freezing in the middle of the week), it was so nice to sleep in.

As far as my reading, I’ve been in a bit of a slump. I ended up having three 2-star reads in a row, so most of the week was a bit of slog. Fortunately, The Grief Keeper seems to have temporarily broken me out, and I’m excited for the books I got at the library yesterday.

Writing-wise, I’ve been getting deep into the weeds of editing, with…varying degrees of success. I’m in the process of both cutting out and resurrecting scenes, which involves trawling through my almost 600-page first draft (OOPS), so that’s been a bit of a struggle. All in the name of making things more coherent.

Other than that, I’ve just been drawing a bit, practicing guitar, watching the new season of Raised By Wolves (interesting start??), listening to the new Lucy Dacus single (SO GOOD) and the new Mitski album (hit or miss…expect a review soon), and hovering around the fireplace to warm up.

hearts&magic

WHAT I READ THIS WEEK:

Binti (Binti, #1) – Nnedi Okorafor (⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)

Binti (Binti, 1): Okorafor, Nnedi: 9780765385253: Amazon.com: Books

Master of Poisons – Andrea Hairston (⭐️⭐️)

Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston

This Is Our Story – Ashley Elston (⭐️⭐️)

Amazon.com: This is Our Story: 9781484730898: Elston, Ashley: Books

Odd One Out – Nic Stone (⭐️⭐️)

Amazon.com: Odd One Out: 9781101939536: Stone, Nic: Books

The Grief Keeper – Alexandra Villasante (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

Amazon.com: The Grief Keeper: 9780525514022: Villasante, Alexandra: Books

POSTS AND SUCH:

SONGS:

CURRENTLY READING/TO READ NEXT WEEK:

Redemptor (Raybearer, #2) – Jordan Ifueko

Amazon.com: Redemptor (Raybearer Book 2): 9781419739842: Ifueko, Jordan: Books

Noor – Nnedi Okorafor

Noor by Nnedi Okorafor: 9780756416096 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves – Meg Long

Amazon.com: Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves: A Novel: 9781250785060: Long, Meg: Books

White Smoke – Tiffany D. Jackson

Amazon.com: White Smoke: 9780063029095: Jackson, Tiffany D: Books

Today’s song:

I CAN’T STOP LISTENING TO THIS

That’s it for this week in blogging! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!