Hello from the land of bar prep, where life has basically become study, eat, sleep, not necessarily in that order. Last weekend at my five-year Kenyon reunion, when I was trying to explain the state of my life to my friends, I accidentally said “I’m a law student studying for the bar. I eat when I’m tired and sleep when I’m hungry.” Yes it’s a funny mix-up, but it’s actually kind of true.
The studying is going well, I think. None of it is particularly difficult—if only all my law school courses had been so clear—but there’s a lot of it. At least that was my outlook until I got my first graded essay back today. Oof. I thought I knew how to write.
I graduated last week too. I’m officially a J.D. I’m excited, but it’s hard to tell because I eat when I’m tired and sleep when I’m hungry and I seem to always be tired and hungry now.
I’m also managing to squeeze in some reading and writing, though less than I would like and probably still more than I should be doing. The bar studying has meant I’ve gotten behind on book reviews. I’m currently reading the second Stormlight Archive book, and that will take me a while and give me time to catch up this week before posting my reading roundup post for May.
A couple weeks ago, I read Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor. This was actually a reread for me, because I read this book back in November or December. The library finally has the sequel, and since I’m supposed to be spending this time rereading books, I thought this was a good place to start.
Sunny is Nigerian, but she was raised in New York until she was nine, and her parents decided to move the family back to Nigeria. Sunny is also an albino, and a soccer prodegy, though she can’t play much because she can’t be outside in direct sunlight. At the start of the book, she’s twelve years old and having social problems at school, because she doesn’t fit in in any way. And on top of that, she’s seeing visions of the end of the world in candle flames, which is just weird, right? Then she meets Orlu, Chichi, and Sasha, and they introduce her to her magical heritage. Sunny, and her new friends, are what are called Leopard People. They belong to a secret culture that practices juju. Sunny’s new friends introduce her to her new world and new powers. They study their magic, have adventures, investigate Sunny’s grandmother—who they think was also a Leopard Person—and get into plenty of trouble. And then they are tasked with finding and stopping a serial killer who has been kidnapping and murdering children in the area as part of a ritual to bring about the end of the world.
When I read this book back in December, I was a little indecisive about how I felt about it. I enjoyed it, definitely, because I put it on my 2018 favorites list. But I also thought it was a bit all over the place in terms of both content and tone, and I didn’t like the treatment of people with disabilities in this world. But this time around, I liked the book much more. Knowing where everything was going helped fit all the pieces together, and it worked really well. I love how down to earth the characters are, and that discovering her magical powers isn’t all fun and games for Sunny. Basically, this book has all the qualities of middle grade fantasy that I love, and now I’m dying to read the sequel.
The treatment of characters with disabilities still bothers me, though. The book makes a big deal about the problem of stereotypes of people with disabilities as people who have secret powers. and yes, okay, calling attention to a stereotype and saying this is not what’s going on here is cool and important. But you can’t say “this is not what’s going on here” and then it is what’s going on here. Akata Witch still does the thing where if you are a Leopard Person, and you have a disability, you are basically superpowered above everyone else because you have natural abilities that you can use without the ordinary tools of Juju. Sunny, an albino, can turn invisible. Orlu, who’s dyslexic, can intuitively undo any Juju he comes across. This means that in this culture, people with disabilities are celebrated, but it also means that the book is actively fulfilling the stereotype it says isn’t true. And beyond that, once you unlock your Leopard Person powers, your disability disappears. Orlu is no longer dyslexic (would love to know how they explain that to the public school). Sunny can go out in direct sunlight without fear of being burned. And if you don’t already know how I feel about characters with magic or superpowers or cool technology that negates their disability, go check out this post. All this was a pretty small part of the book, and it didn’t really affect how much I liked the book. But it was definitely an issue, and I wanted to flag it.
On the whole, though, this was a fun book with just the right amount of adventure and danger for me, and I’m looking forward to getting my hands on the sequel.
So, have you read Akata Witch? What did you think?