Daughters Of Nri (The Return Of The Earth Mother): 1

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I did have some qualms about minor writing things, but this prose has a lot of beauty in it, especially when describing the women of this novel and the magic/world. There does seem to be a budding romance between Naala and another character, though there are many other types of relationships present — familial (not necessarily via blood), friendship, even frenemies. There were so many feminist things in this book, and there were some sexist and patriarchal problems in the kingdom. This can be anything from using the second person POV (like in Jemisin’s The Broken Earth trilogy), to full-blown New Weird books.

I don’t want to reveal too much of the plot so I’ll leave it there but it did make me change my mind-set. Despite their progress, it is clear both characters have so much more room for growth, which I’m excited to see in the upcoming books.I couldn’t put the book down when I started to read it and then I also bought it in audible and was totally emerged in the book.

She would be forced to become someone she’s not, despite her surrounding environment of her home village, representing a sense of freedom Sinai would never have. All thoughts of trying to ‘be nice’ or ‘ignoring her’ would have gone out the window, as ironic as that may sound. I ended up bookmarking the glossary separately so I could flick to the back whenever a word came up that I didn’t know. That means that there were just a lot of odd choices I noticed that really took me out of the story and prevented me from being fully taken in. Her motives are not without reason, but as the book progresses, she learns that she is capable of so much more.The dual narrative/perspectives really worked well here and we got enough time with each character to fall in love with them both as individuals. Her pronunciation of the words and the names were so good, and the Nigerian accent she did was also very amazing. She is a tough older lady character who has more knowledge than she first lets on and I think she came into her own as the book progressed. Though miles apart, both girls share an indestructible bond: they share the same blood, the same face and possess the same unspoken magic, thought to have vanished years ago with the lost gods.

Our fullness as humans is represented, our weakness and our strengths are recognised and celebrated. About half of this book was world building, I didn’t feel overwhelmed by that at all but sometimes I did want the pace of the plot to pick up slightly. It took a long time to get to the point of why the twins are special, and by the time their actual twin action happened, it was a rushed conclusion that's only a little satisfying. I've always thought that repeatedly mentioning the skin colour of characters implies how unusual the very idea of their existence in that particular context is.Their journeys to accepting their powers and recognising what that may mean was reminiscent of many us young people trying to understand our strengths. It was so refreshing to see how the strong female characters were in the face of all the adversities they faced. One of my favorite things about this book is that the sisters weren't just dumped together and expected to work/figure things out together.