Who Fears Death
{4.5/5} “It was like looking into a mirror when you’ve never seen your reflection. For the first time, I understood why people stopped, dropped things, and stared when they saw me. He was my skin tone, had my freckles, and his rough golden hair was shaved so close that it looked like a coat of sand.”
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor, published in 2010
Onyesonwu and her mother lived in the desert when she was a child. They came to Jwahir so Onyesonwu could go to school. When she was 11 her mother told her of her violent conception. Onyesonwu chose to undergo the Eleventh Year Rite. While it happens she feels that she went elsewhere, and the other girls said she went invisible. Now she has three friends, three more than she had before.
It’s about learning about your powers, while dealing with the usual things in life like friends, love, and sexism. It’s about courage and sacrifice.
Okorafor creates a vivid postapocalyptic world where two groups of people have been fighting for some time.
This is the 2nd book I’ve read by Okorafor. I previously reviewed Binti: The Complete Trilogy.