I was incredibly impressed and moved by this book. It's sparse details around the speculative elements (psychic powers and future tech) only assist in grounding it in our very real world.

By placing these characters alongside some of the most striking race-based tragedies of our modern era, and chillingly, accurately, painting the kind of world that people like these characters live through day to day, it ensures that we see these tragedies within the frame of what they are; shockpoints of injustice made public alongside a million similar injustices that happen every day.

It feels remarkably new to read sci-fi that faces where we are now, rather than either ignoring it or just creating an overall dystopia that lacks the granularity and banality of the dystopia we're living in, as regards to justice.

So much of the book helps someone like me (coming from a fairly privileged background) really understand why folks who face these injustices often seem to perpetuate the cycles of violence and pain... and that is simply that there is no other path open to them... it's not that they don't know it's a cycle or a trap. They know that exactly. In fact, this adds to the anger and frustration that simmers everywhere. This book really shows the 'system' in 'systemic racism.' A system that doesn't have an evil villain perpetuating it, just a series of people abusing their privilege, operating out of fear and hate.

The end of the book begins to sketch what kind of world beyond the one presented might look like, and my only critique is that I wish we could have spent more time exploring what that could mean. Perhaps a sequel, Mr. Onyebuchi? ( )

"They’ll feel us in every corner of this country."

Not what I was expecting. I thought it would solely be from Ella’s perspective. Instead, we get some spotlight on police brutality, white terrorism, inhumane conditions for the incarcerated, class issues, how Black women often get mistreated in healthcare and childbirth, etc. And man is this New York dudes. Talk about excessive use of the N-word. It’s a lot of their first word for sure.

Anywho, I wish I could have liked this better, but I wanted to know more about Ella and less about Kev. I would’ve loved to see Ella go Killmonger, but alas it wasn’t meant to be. I did like seeing justified anger displayed artfully.

when Ella spirited away Kev through their mom’s memories and ancestors was pretty cool. ( )

Struggled through, but wow, was this book not for me. The realist part was so dark, and gritty, and hopeless, and angry - which is justified, but very much not what works for me. That's on me, not on the book, but it still influences my rating.
The magic part was... a bit half-baked tbh. Ella keeps developing new powers, off screen - and not once do we hear of her using those powers to relieve suffering, to make things better, to help anyone move forward. She bottles it up, she goes looking for more and more grief and anger and injustice and then goes for vengeance and retribution.
I agree there are things that are unforgivable, but causing more pain for innocent people is never the answer. ( )

Maybe a 2.5? This started so well but the decay began about 1/3 in' Onyebuchi seemed to be in a race against time to mention every high profile example of deadly structural racism and each signal event highlighting the same. Rodney, OJ, Freddie Gray, checks all around. The great Migration, the medical establishment's disregard of Black women's health especially in matters of maternal health, gentrification, the prison industrial complex, the dehumanization of Black people by the justice system, the substitution of mood-altering drugs for reclamation of stolen dignity. More checks! I am not saying these are not all important things or irrelevant to discussion of righteous rage. But this is a novella, so once you introduce all of that there is not much space for an actual story. If there had been real characters instead of tropes made unique only by possession of supernatural powers (or knowing people with supernatural powers) we would have something. Also the mention of these high profile events one after the other makes it seem like the events are unique rather that evidence of much larger often fatal structural defects. This felt like a good treatment for a 3 volume series but on its own its a no. ( )

A lot of this book is a [needed] gut punch about what life in America had been for too many people but it was let down by the choppy flow & weak plot. It felt like the intro to a longer book. ( )