I am so frustrated by this book!! I feel like I've been fighting it as much as reading it, and I have such conflicted feelings. Having reached the end, and now fully understanding the premise, I like the idea so much. I was pretty invested in Zelu for the majority of the book, though I struggled to get invested with other sections at times.

Basically, there are three interweaving parts of this story: Zelu's timeline as an improbably successful and popular author; the Hume timeline with Ankara, a robot locked in battle with an army of AIs (hardware versus software, more or less, which fits other themes in the book!); and interviews with members of Zelu's family. I have nothing relevant to say about the interviews, except that I usually liked them even when wasn't not sure how they related to things or where they fell in the timeline of the novel.

As for the other two threads, I found Zelu's to be the most interesting, though it's minimally sci-fi and I struggled to buy into the scale of her success. I had a much harder time getting invested in the robot plotline, in part because the first few sections were written exclusively as dense summary rather than as engaging scenes. That changes as the book goes on, but by then I was already tepid toward those sections. But they are the most sci-fi heavy portion of this sci-fi novel! So what's a reader to think?

At this point, I've read all but three or so of Okorafor's works, and I usually either really like them (e.g. Binti, Remote Control) or am very lukewarm toward them (e.g. The Desert Magician series). Her prose style is usually quite spare, and I think that's the reason I couldn't immediately get into this. There were so many places where more detail, more sensory description, and more linkage between the scenes would have helped immerse me in the world. The Ankara scenes especially felt so rushed, which in turn made me skeptical about the wild success that Zelu experiences as an author. Weirdly, I think I would have liked this book to be longer just so that things could have been more fleshed out. But I see a lot of other readers complaining that too much time was spent on Zelu's family drama and connecting more to the harder scifi, which makes me smile.

I liked this book more than I would have expected at the midpoint, and I kept feeling like Okorafor was playing with me. In fact, I think this might be the case. By the end of the novel, I felt like she wrote this book for herself and merely allowed us to read it. I won't say too much about the plot or gradual reveals, because they snuck up on me in a way that I found extremely satisfying.

While I'm not saying that this book is autobiographical AT ALL, I suspect from having read her actual memoir (Broken Places & Outer Spaces) that Okorafor put a fair bit of her personal experience into Zelu's descriptions of living with disability. One of the things I liked so much about Zelu's POV is that she's not always likeable per se, but she is ALWAYS herself. She's not interested in being a role model for the disabled community, or in trying to get along with people who rub her the wrong way. Her family drove me CRAZY at times, but hey, that's family. As a reader, I'm always character-first, and getting to tag along with Zelu's ups and downs meant that even when I wasn't always connecting with the prose, I was never in danger of DNFing. I wanted to know what would happen to her.

In addition to extensive disability and Nigerian-American rep, there's a trans side character (I liked how that was handled even though she's in barely 1% of the story) and lots of small discussions about things that I don't see represented often in mainstream fiction. I can see that this book is already polarizing for readers, and I can see why, as I felt like I was being pulled in multiple directions while reading. I would personally say that "Death of the Author" is more literary than scifi, so people coming in with scifi expectations might be disappointed; but if you're an Okorafor fan, I think you'll also be delighted by what I perceived to be a high number of easter eggs related to Okorafor's other works.

I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley; my review is my own and is being left voluntarily. As long as Okorafor keeps writing books, I'll keep reading them. I mean this is in the most normal way possible: I like her brain.

First off, let me start off by saying that I am not a big sci-fi fan, but I love the whole meta book within a book trope so I went for it with Death of the Author and so glad I did. I knew Nnedi Okorafor is an accomplished author, and I had no hesitancy to read a book penned by her.

Our main character in Death of the Author has hit a rock bottom, loss of her job, single and her latest book rejected by publisher. Zelu decides to take a risk with her literary career and write a novel unlike anything she has written before... a science fiction novel about robots and AI non-human characters. Her life is changed when it becomes an instant blockbuster.

I loved the present time storyline, loved that our protagonist had a disability, but the way Okorafor created her she was so well developed and rounded that the disability didn't become her defining characteristic. There was such a beautiful blend of intersectionality and personality that Zelu feels so authentic and relatable. I rooted for her the whole time. The sci fi chapters were a little tougher for me to enjoy, only because that isn't my thing, but I thought even those chapters were well written and loved how they portrayed/related to Zelu in her current life. I think this novel will appeal to both the literary novel lovers and to those that like science fiction. You get the best of both worlds with Nnedi Okorafor writing the story.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review and advanced digital copy. All opinions are my own.

Zelu feels like the odd one out of her Nigerian and high achieving family. She is unemployed, disabled, and not succeeding as an author. Until one night she begins to write a science fiction AI story, that becomes an instant best seller. As her life changed with fame, the lines between fiction and reality blur.

There are so many great things about this book, so I do really recommend it despite my three stars (which is solely based on my enjoyment factor). This book is very well written. The main characters are well developed and feel very real. I loved all the family drama and dysfunction and how it clearly affected the main character. Theres disability rep and a lot of the story is based on the main character living as a disabled black female in the world. It gets into the whitewashing of cultural works of art as well. There’s a story within the story, which thankfully was written within short chapters because I just couldn’t get into that sci fi aspect. If you like scifi, you’ll appreciate it and how it begins to mirror the real life occurrences. This book is really long; too long, and that was one of my issued. While I enjoyed the story and the main character, I just got really bogged down around 50-75% and it felt like a chore. The rest of it I was excited to pick up so give this one a try.

“But you should know, Zelu’s no robot. She’s all human, and she felt things deeply. Everything that happened, she felt it all.”

Death of the Author comes out 1/14.

There is something very addictive about this author’s writing style. So much so that I kept reading much further than I wanted to. Personally, I went into this hoping for sci-fi but it is unfortunately very low on the sci-fi and is much more of a lit fic book with a lot of family drama. Personally that is just really not my cup of tea which is why I eventually stopped reading. But I will say that the writing style did hook me in and had me reading for longer than I thought I would stay interested. As such, if you are a reader interested in family drama with a dash of sci-fi then I would definitely give this a chance because it is written very well. As for myself, I would definitely give other books by this author a chance if they were more suited to my genre tastes. Thank you to the publishers and author for the ARC copy.

This book was like a box of candy with a surprise filling, and it delighted me…


This is my first reading of Nnedi Okotafor’s book. Initially, the blurb suggested a blend of literary fiction with some sci-fi elements, which piqued my interest. However, delving deeper, I found it more heavily rooted in science fiction, particularly within the Africanfuturism subgenre. Nnedi is known for coining the term Africanfuturism and forraying stories in the mainstream from this subgenre. I went in without reading any reviews, simply the synopsis of a young woman who dared to defy the odds and chose to live on her terms... And the book delivered just that emphatically.


The title, Death of the Author, is inspired by the famous essay by the French literary critic and theorist Roland Barthes. Although I haven't read the essay, a brief overview helped me grasp its significance and why Nnedi chose it as a title. "Death of the Author" posits that an author's intentions and personal details should not significantly influence the interpretation of their work. This mid-20th-century literary concept suggests that a reader’s interpretation can hold as much value as the writer's. In Nnedi’s book, this idea is intricately woven throughout, encouraging readers to reflect deeply on their interpretations of the protagonists’ actions.


We meet Zelu, a twenty-something aspiring author and adjunct professor at a university in Chicago. She is Nijamerican, skillfully navigating the delicate balance between her deep love for the culture of her Nigeran heritage and her embrace of the individualistic ethos she was taught as an American-born and raised in Chicago.

As a person with paraplegia, she faces numerous struggles, yet her strength is truly inspiring. She refuses to let anything hinder her life. Despite her desire to lead an everyday life, society and her family often remind her of her limitations. In contrast to her siblings, who all thrive professionally, Zelu boldly chooses a less conventional path as a writer. She navigates the challenges of being the black sheep with humor, resilience, and determination.

While on the picturesque island of Trinidad and Tobago celebrating one of her sisters’ wedding, Zelu’s life is upended. As she hits absolute rock bottom, her stellar piecework from the depths of this abyss emerges- Rusted Robots. As she rides the high wave of success of her book that takes her from Boston to Lagos, we, as readers, are privy to Zelu’s psyche as we see her extension through the protagonist, Ankara, whom she created for her book Rusted Robots.

I did not agree with Zelu at each point, but I admired her. Nnedi crafted a complex and nuanced character, and I was absorbed into the story from the first page, but I could not put it down. A delightful surprise within the book was the exploration of Zelu's creation, "Rusted Robots. The themes of love, grief, and familial pressures were beautifully written and brought me to tears, highlighting the universality of our emotions despite cultural differences. Nnedi’s struggle with scoliosis is reflected in Zelu’s emotional journey, adding depth and authenticity to the narrative. That said, the book does suffer a bit in pacing. While the first half was flawless, the story began to drag after the 60% mark. The conclusion of "Rusted Robots" felt rushed; through the protagonist Ankara, I glimpsed Zelu's innermost thoughts, and truncating the ending robbed me of a fuller and better understanding.

The book's ending will stay with me forever. As I write about it, I see how I, as a reader, have inferred that Zelu’s personal life influenced her protagonist, Ankara, and that Nndei’s struggles are reflected in Zelu. This is why the book stays with you long after you are done reading.
This is one of the more difficult reviews I had to write. I also request that Rusted Robots be released as a stand-alone book because I loved reading it.

I absolutely recommend reading it. Nendis wove magic!



Thank you, NetGalley & William Morrow, for providing me with an eARC to review

4.2 Stars

Despite my familiarity with Okorafor's phenomenal writing, I was little concerned that this concept would fall flat. I could not have been more wrong! Death of the Author is an inventive and intriguing story. Flipping between a contemporary family-oriented narrative that feels in parts stifling, relatable, and heartwrenching and a sci-fi story-within-a-story, this has a little something for everyone. My favorite bit, however, is the end--unpredictable and brilliant, it launched an already good book way up the ranks of my favorite reads.

As for the bones, you will find a lot of what makes Okorafor's works great. Loving and complicated families, unusual and exceptional protagonists, unexpected friendships, and rich blends of Nigerian culture come together to make a world that feels very real and vast. I particularly enjoyed how well the meta-fiction was handled--essentially giving the reader two novels in one. I'm impressed at how complete both stories feel without a vastly inflated word count, and how well their connections paid off by the end of the novel.

Oh wow, this book is a journey. When my friends asked me what "genre" this book is I answered "I don't know, I'll find out before I finish it." But this book just refused to be contained within a single genre. It instead traveled between literary fiction and SciFi. Back and forth. I think some readers were upset about it. I was not. I was along for the ride. What ride that is, you may ask?

Briefly we have two entangled stories. One takes place in the near future, where Zelu--a disabled American-Nigerian author, down on her luck and sick of conforming to the expectations of her over-protective family--writes a best-selling novel about robots and AI in a dystopian future where humanity is now extinct; the near-instant fame she acquires almost destroys her and her family. The novel's success comodifies her and her creation to the point where she feels her grip on her fictional world slipping.

Enter story number 2: Zelu's novel. In the far future, two robots (one with and one without a body) become so entangled in their coding they can no longer completely separate, all while their respective 'tribes' are at war and the Earth is months or weeks, or hours away from total annihilation brought upon by a third group of robots who flew too close to the sun and have gone mad.

So what are you reading? I dare you to find out. The line between the stories blurs to total extinction as the novel progresses. In parallel, the line between Zelu and her fans seems to also blur under the pressure of social media to engage in parasocial relationships. And at the same time, Ankara and Ijele (the two robots) also become more and more entangled. It is an interesting story about labels, tribalism, creation, duty and individualism. The only part that made me feel uncomfortable was that the actual author of this novel didn't linger as much as I'd expected on the evils of automation, big corporations, and rushed prototypes. But somehow I am okay with this, because of the unique twists, turns and questions explored in the rest of the novel.

At times Zelu and her family are difficult to understand. Her Nigerian family's resistance and vicious take downs felt like too much, almost artificial. In a way the ending explains this. But also...I remembered my own experience as a Romanian expat. It may be difficult for Western audiences to understand, but some societies, whose social and natural resources had been stripped by the West, really do dog their members down. I remember when one of my Ivy-league PhD-holding friend was without a job for months; her neighbors rejoiced in her struggles, held them up to her face and mocked her for her efforts to better her life. Yes, this type of cruelty is possible. It comes from the hollow place where people's dreams used to reside, where the stories of their glorious future succumbed. It is hard for Western audiences to understand this...because they insulated themselves from the outcomes of their actions on other cultures. It doesn't make the story unrealistic. It makes it authentic in an uncomfortable way. Still, the ending was surprisingly hopeful. Both Scheherazade and Icarus would be proud of this conclusion. Perhaps flying too close to the sun is not a death-sentence, so long as another author can pick up the story and keep it alive for future generations.

Overall I really enjoyed the story and found it hard to put down. It's been wrongly compared in my opinion to "Yellowface" but that is only a superficial similarity and you may be disappointed with the outcome if you go into this expecting a variation on R.F. Kwuang's novel. I better comparison would be in my opinion "The Unseen World" by Liz Moore. Although that may give too much away. 4.5 stars rounded up.

DEATH OF THE AUTHOR is a sci-fi book within a general fiction book (I hesitate to call it literary fiction). The main story is about Zelu, a Nigerian American paraplegic woman, recently fired from her job and at rock bottom, who writes a sci-fi novel that becomes an international phenomenon. The story takes off from there as Zelu navigates her fame and all it gives her access to and the ways it impacts her relationships. It seems to take place in the near future and involves technology that doesn’t quite exist yet, but feels close.

I’ll start with the good. Zelu is a Black and disabled main character, and I loved the representation and learning more about her challenges and how she navigates the world and the celebration of Nigerian food and culture. The food sounded so amazing that I ended up finding and a recipe for jollof rice and making it this week!

That’s as much praise as I can give it. The writing style felt stilted and clunky to me. The premise sounds amazing because of all the topics it covers - fame, the publishing industry, cancel culture, race, disability, technology, etc. - but I didn’t feel satisfied on its exploration of any of those. I felt like I was just reading Zelu and her family argue with each other over and over and over again without any character growth. Zelu is incredibly immature, and that’s a huge pet peeve of mine in books. She’s angry at the world, and as justified as that may be, it’s exhausting to read about for 450 pages. On top of that, we were told over and over how amazing her novel was, and yet I hated the book within the book. It felt incongruous and annoying to be beat over the head with how brilliant and phenomenal the book was, meanwhile all I saw of the author was how annoying and immature she was, and then the excerpts weren’t even good. This book was way too long and felt that way. The writing style reads quickly, but it was so repetitive I couldn’t wait for it to be over.

This book is getting a lot of pre-publication buzz and seems to have a huge marketing budget, and I’ve read some glowing reviews, so clearly this is working for some readers. And I have to be honest, the deluxe limited edition is gorgeous. If you’ve had success with Okorafor’s work in the past, this is probably worth a shot. Otherwise, I would give it some time to see if it has staying power once the initial marketing push is over before grabbing this one.

Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow for the free copy in exchange for my honest review.

3.5 stars-Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book, releasing Tuesday, January 14th!

Huge fan of Okorafor's shorter fiction (the Binti trilogy is a masterpiece and I really liked the first volume in the new She Who Knows trilogy) so I was excited to get this as an ARC! I liked it but didn't love it-I think conceptually and what she did with the ending was great. The robot novel interludes never quite grabbed me, maybe because they were short chapters and I wasn't able to get immersed or invested the way I did with Zelu's story, which makes up a bigger portion of the book. The third act felt a little out of place somehow, which might have just been about pacing-it covers a lot of ground and introduces a new story element and we rushed through quite a bit of it, or at least it felt that way to me. I didn't like this as much as Okorafor's shorter works, but I still enjoyed reading it overall.

This might actually be the best book I've ever read.

I have just now calmed down enough to put some of my thoughts to paper about this book. It will be gushingly positive.

Death of the Author>, at it's most literal level, is a book about a young disabled woman named Zelu who writes an overnight sensation of a novel and then has to navigate her life with that fame clinging to her. Zelu is Nigerian-American with parents of two different lineages - Igbo and Yoruba - and a large family of siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins that appear throughout her journey. The book explores Nigerian-American culture and the disabled community as well as themes of belonging, love, and grief.

Writing a summary of this book is deliriously hard because there is so much beauty and nuance between the pages that simply cannot translate into the words of a review. I usually break my reviews down by basic book elements like plot, characters, pacing, etc., and I will cover a little bit of that here. But the exceptionalism of this story cannot really be captured by examining those things individually.

From the beginning, Zelu is a character. The book opens with her getting ready for her sister's wedding in Tobago. While there, Zelu quickly brings the reader into her confidence and begins sharing assorted family ties, dramas, ad cultural practives that she navigates while preparing for the ceremony. There is a huge group of characters that come up very quickly, but it never feels overwhelming. Each character immediately has their own voice and purpose in the story, and the reader feels that immediately.

After the release of Zelu's book, the chapters begin to flip between Zelu's perspective and the perspective of Ankara, the main character in the book Rusted Robots. Ankara's journey is separate from Zelu's with an entirely different cast of characters, but at no point do the transitions feel choppy or abrupt. Each chapter feels like it has a purpose and that it builds on the last, regardless of whose perspective you were previously in.

Truly the most magical part of this book was the author's writing style. This is my first book by Nnedi Okorafor, but I immediately feel that I need to start reading her entire backlog. Despite the copious sci-fi elements here, this story is deeply human, exploring themes of belonging and family while including automatic vehicles and robotic enhancements. Zelu herself has a unique and delightful voice (even when Zelu herself isn't being particiularly delightful) that is unlike any book I have read before, and her family is one of the most vibrant and alive that I have read in a long time.

Ultimately, Death of the Author is a book that is sure to stick with me. The beautiful writing and imagery has burned itself into my head and heart and I hope very much to see more adult works from this author going forward.

I have attempted a couple Nnedi Okorafor and I have decided, although it hurts my heart, that her writing style is not for me. I can appreciate the story and the concepts attempted in this story so giving 3.5 stars, but not an author I will continue to read in the future, or will have to revisit at a different stage in my life.

3.5 stars!

Deep, guttural, ancestral sigh...Zelu is a fun character. She has lived over 30 years in a life ruled by her Nigerian culture, her storytelling nature, her toxic family structure, and a physical disability. In a time where she thought nothing good would or could come from her, she created the story that would change her life for better and for worse. She became a household name literally overnight. Nnedi Okorafor brought us two stories in one as she allowed us to experience the love, loss, yearning, conflict, and success of both Zelu and her story's character, Ankara. These stubborn, persistent, vulnerable, matter of fact characters worked together to challenge our ideas of creativity and companionship. They both took on the large task of following their perceived purpose in the face of fear, adversity, and those who believed they shouldn't.

I struggled with this story, but I'm glad I struggled with it instead of giving up on it. I'm not a science fiction girlie, so I was glad to discover that this story contained much more literary fiction than science fiction. I really became invested in Zelu's commitment to creating the story she believed in and living the life she deserved even though her family opposed her at every turn.

I had a hard time connecting to Ankara's story, and it really didn't come together for me until the very end. I now understand that I couldn't have a complete understanding of Zelu's journey without a glimpse into Ankara's, but as I was reading, those parts seemed like more of a nuisance than anything. I think the author could've done better about creating more seamless transitions between the two stories.

I really enjoyed the cultural aspect of this story. It was baked into the fabric of the pages in a way that it surely could not be separated from the characters or the journey they were on. I enjoyed that the author was not trying to teach us about Nigerian-American culture, rather she was allowing us to experience it and catch on where we could. This was truly an immersive experience that I'm glad she was able to create. We even see Zelu be molded by and in her understanding of her culture from the beginning to the end.

At the end we are met with a Zelu that is drastically different, yet essentially the same as the character from the beginning. While I appreciated the introspection, headstrongness, and submission to adventure that guided Zelu through her character development journey, so much of what she experienced seemed so unrealistic that I struggled to connect with and really buy into her story. I think her character was written really well, but her story was difficult to engage with for me.

As most well written characters do, I know that Zelu will stick with me. She'll be like an old friend that I think of from time to time and wonder how she's doing.

Thank you to NetGalley, Nnedi Okorafor, and William Morrow for providing me with the opportunity read and review this eARC.

A truly magnificent work of fiction that refuses to fit within the constraints of one literary genre — Death of the Author follows Zelu, a disabled Naijamerican author whose life quickly evolves after writing a novel unlike any of her previous works. Sprinkled throughout Zelu’s story are excerpts from her sci-fi novel Rusted Robots and interviews with those closest to her.

I was wholly immersed and invested in Zelu’s story, and I could not put this book down. Okorafor’s writing packs a punch, and I hope she gets the recognition she deserves for this book.

I don’t want to spoil too much. I think this is a book that a reader deserves to experience fully without preconceived notions.

I highly recommend this one, and I will be surprised if it doesn’t rank among my top reads of 2025.

My rating: 5⭐️

Also after looking at the deluxe print edition, I will absolutely need a copy for my shelf. The easter eggs and details are just as stunning as the prose within the pages.
🤖🇳🇬

4.5 stars
Pretty amazing novel within a novel. It's the story of Zelu, a disabled Nigerian American author who is not very successful and the inspired sci-fi novel she writes that changes the trajectory of her life. I really liked Zelu: smart, strong, prickly, and brave. I didn't love some of the other characters (mostly for how they tried to manipulate Zelu) but they certainly felt real. I think I liked the characters in Zelu's novel the best of all. How the author kind of merges the two stories (Zelu's and the one Zelu writes) was mind bending!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a free e-ARC of this book.

Death of the Author is a book within a book, in which the narrative is carried by the protagonist of each book. The protagonist of one of the narratives is Zelu is a complex person, born to parents who immigrated from Nigeria, female, paraplegic, and not accepted by her family because of her disability as well as because she is not as successful as her siblings - because of that, nothing she does is every quite enough. The protagonist of the other narrative is Ankara, a self-named humanoid robot living in a future in which humanity has died off - a robot who believes, quite sincerely, that the stories told by humanity are the key to the survival of her future. The two stories are told in parallel, and while the settings and situations are very different, the characters share a great deal in common.

If you're looking for a book that is clearly defined by genre, this isn't it. Zelu's narrative is literary fiction, while Ankara's narrative is science fiction; the entire novel is a compilation of both. I found Ankara's narrative to be more compelling; Zelu's narrative is a bit overwritten, and would have benefitted from being pruned a bit more in the editing process. Nonetheless, this is a fascinating novel that moved quickly as I read it, and which will appeal to a wide variety of readers.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book provided by Netgalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

"Show him the love and compassion humans were known for. Tell him a story." (388)

This line embodies the heart of the novel for me. Stories have the power to transform—they take you places. They’re essential for humanity, for connection, and for understanding. A story is a tool for lawyers, a bridge for college—to get in, to get out. You enter with one story and leave with another. The hope lies in the words, in the experience. Stories make you feel.

And this novel, The Death of the Author, made me feel alive. The irony of the title only adds to its depth.

There’s a moment in Chapter 18, "Aerographene"—my favorite chapter—when Zelu writes in her journal. She pours out her fears, hopes, past experiences of the day, mottos, and a heartfelt manifestation:
"Maybe I’ll break all the bones in my legs. It will be my fault. But I will continue. I’ve allowed myself to dream. Not of reality. I will never be able to walk. I know. But I want to see. I don’t expect, but maybe I am hoping.
Tomorrow is where my hope lives.
I can’t be normal, so I’ll be something else."

This passage struck me deeply, inspiring me to immediately grab my own journal—pen to paper, old-fashioned, just like Zelu. I reflected on how today feels, and what tomorrow might bring.

A writer’s journal often ends in poetry—something lasting, something meaningful. The final sentence is a breath exhaled, the chaos of the day spilled out. And yet, from every ink mark, we grow stronger. The pen becomes an extension of ourselves, breathing life back into us. Recirculating back to my very own poetry, but this novel just cemented my beliefs further. There’s a strange magic to it—a cycle where the dying tree gives us oxygen, fueling our creativity and connecting us to something bigger.

For Zelu, the tree that symbolizes loss gave her something profound—a peace offering, perhaps: I take these legs but here instead I give life; I give you loss, but now you forever have courage to always gain.

Zelu’s character is beautiful—real, vivid, and inspiring. She’s an author, a reader, a creation, and a creator. Ankara and Zelu. Writer, poet, dreamer. Okorafor captures the essence of a writer with such authenticity. And the family dynamics? So much rawness and truth!

GET IT! GET IT! GET IT!
5+5/5 🤎🤎🤎🤎🤎

A story within a story, a Sci-Fi inside a LitFic - this book completely blew me away with the geniously executed conclusion making me audibly gasp.

Zelu - a disabled Nigerian American women from a big family where all her siblings seem to be successful overachievers, gets fired from her job, her novel gets rejected, she appears to hit rock bottom. An idea comes to her and she writes a story about Androids and AI living on earth after human extinction that becomes a global bestseller. You will not always like Zelu, but you will still root for her the whole time.

This book tugged at my heartstrings the whole time. Her navigating her judgmental family, her inconsistent, often entitled fans, relatives in Nigeria, good old prejudice cause of her disability, even the plot of the book that she wrote.. It was a rollercoaster of emotions with an absolutely insane and mind blowing ending.

What does it takes to write the story? Can AI write a story? Can the reader write the story? “Creation flows both ways”

I will be thinking about this book for a very long time.

Also the Nigerian food descriptions made my mouth water and stomach growl that I actually had to find a local place serving some Jollof rice and it was delicious!!

Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow for sending the eARC for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Wow! This is an absolute masterpiece. Once again, Nnedi Okorafor has proven why she remains a favorite author whose work I will always gladly reach for. This book is such a skillfully woven piece of science fiction and literary fiction rolled into one tale while still maintaining separately interwoven ideas. This tale is a story within a story that each stands on their own and gives us the best of both worlds.

In the novel, we meet Zelu, who is an American born Nigerian writer, adjunct professor, and paraplegic. She is the second child of her parents but is treated like the youngest due to her disability. But Zelu does not accept being defined by others based on the parameters of her physical body. At a very low point in her life, Zelu gives a proverbial fu to the world by sharing a story created from the wildest parts of her imagination and full of her Nigerian cultural identity, and the overwhelming response, shoots her to success and stardom. At the backdrop of all this is Zelu's home life, where she's just a girl, misunderstood by her family, constantly chastised for stepping out of the box she has been placed in, and continuously battling the many identities she is forced to navigate.

Zelu is not a particularly likeble character. She is headstrong, she is nuanced, she doesn't bend to the ideals others place on her, she focuses on the negatives of her life, and she demands to be seen and loved for exactly who she is, flaws and all. The success she has achieved is both welcomed and hated, as she realizes the world constantly seeks to take more and more of her without actually trying to understand her. At the same time, she has found an unexpected love (Msizi) who completely gets her in a way that all partners should understand and support each other. This book is full of all the nuances and drama that is to be expected of her Igbo Yoruba royal family. They equal care about her while dismissing her success as insignificant and weird. But all the success is not enough for Zelu. She seeks the stars and refuses to settle for anything less.

The other story within this novel is the sci-fic novel that shoots Zelu to stardom. Being in this otherworld of robotics and AI after humanity has been destroyed was fantastic, and the ending will blow your mind. It certainly blew mind. Here, we explore a reality where technology is sentient, and we witness a battle of wills and differences between these differing expressions of technology. The way that the negative biases and goodness of humanity were written into the codes of these forms of intelligence and executed without interrogation was so interesting to read.

Is it ever a true Nnedi story if a Masquerade doesn't appear? This novel felt like the ultimate culmination of Nnedi Okorafor as an author. This story showcases both the imaginative science fiction mind that gave us the mastery that is Binti, coupled with the humanity and cultural nuances of the Akata series. Usually, I am not the biggest fan of authors writing stories where the main character is an author, but this book blew past any expectations I could have had in the best way possible.

When I read a book like this I always think, "I should read more sci-fi!" "Creation flows both ways." It's a story within a story with a story. Inception with robots.
✅️ perceptions of reality distorted
✅️ strong women characters
✅️ reality and stories woven together
✅️ Ai gets theirs

This book's genre is difficult to pinpoint. Indeed, even the premise is difficult to explain. (And perhaps, that's the whole point.) It's being marketed as science fiction (subgenre: africanfuturism as defined by the author). However, there may not be enough sci-fi elements to appease ardent sci-fi readers. The main focus of the book is Zelu, an author, who writes a sci-fi book called Rusted Robots. Despite the fact that Rusted Robots doesn't take up much of the book, it is still a compelling story. I empathized with Ankara's (a robot) struggles to exist in a post-human world. The world-building in this portion of the novel did leave me with questions. I would have preferred a more definitive and specific answer as to what happened to the world. Ankara's story is so compelling, and I wished there were more scenes of Ankara' story with Ijele, Udide, and even the Ghosts and Trippers.

This book could also be categorized as literary fiction, and I think it most definitely would appeal to readers of lit-fic. Zelu's story is an examination of these themes: creation, authorship, identity, fame (including cancel culture), grief, ablism, hope, culture, family, racism, sexism, and essentially, what it means to be human. Yes, there's a lot going on in this book. I enjoyed reading about Zelu's existence, relationships, history, and identity in the context of her Nigerian cultures (Igbo and Yoruba). Further, I think Zelu's journey to making her robotic legs (exo) a part of her body and identity is an interesting commentary about the pros and cons of robotics and AI. However, because of the book's pacing, some themes were quickly discussed, some were emphasized over and over, and others were a bit on the nose. I do think that the pacing was off in this book. There are moments of intense action, and then there are moments where the story lingers on a certain feeling or emotion for too long.

The ending of the book will stay with me for a long time. This is the mark of a good author.

Thanks to NetGalley & William Morrow for providing me with an eARC to review.