soph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophia_sol) wrote2015-05-05 08:11 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2015-05-05 08:11 pm
Brown Girl in the Ring, by Nalo Hopkinson
What a great book!
I had trouble getting into it at first, because it is a dystopian urban fantasy - a genre that doesn't appeal to me - that opens with a young woman still being super into her bad-news ex-boyfriend and I was just like SIIIIGGGGHHHHH.
But it turns out to be ACTUALLY basically about family systems theory and the various ways a family is dysfunctional being passed down between generations of women, and the youngest woman in this family working to break through the established patterns of abuse/neglect/bad-boyfriend-decisions. And also saving Toronto, via the Afro-Caribbean magic she learned from her grandmother.
So I started the book fairly out of sorts with Ti-Jeanne, because of her aforementioned bad news ex-boyfriend and her still being into him and making poor decisions as relates to him, and her relative lack of awareness for much but her own concerns. But by the end of the book I had a million Ti-Jeanne feels!
In conclusion I'm very glad that I bought this book from a thrift shop on a whim because I thought I maybe recognized the author's name.
I had trouble getting into it at first, because it is a dystopian urban fantasy - a genre that doesn't appeal to me - that opens with a young woman still being super into her bad-news ex-boyfriend and I was just like SIIIIGGGGHHHHH.
But it turns out to be ACTUALLY basically about family systems theory and the various ways a family is dysfunctional being passed down between generations of women, and the youngest woman in this family working to break through the established patterns of abuse/neglect/bad-boyfriend-decisions. And also saving Toronto, via the Afro-Caribbean magic she learned from her grandmother.
So I started the book fairly out of sorts with Ti-Jeanne, because of her aforementioned bad news ex-boyfriend and her still being into him and making poor decisions as relates to him, and her relative lack of awareness for much but her own concerns. But by the end of the book I had a million Ti-Jeanne feels!
In conclusion I'm very glad that I bought this book from a thrift shop on a whim because I thought I maybe recognized the author's name.