Thanks to William Morrow for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I finished this book a few weeks ago and I keep thinking about the very satisfying conclusion. I can’t say more or I’d ruin it. But I’m still bursting about how it ended (almost like I did about how Girls Burn Brighter wrapped things up).

I was drawn into the story immediately. The pacing is fast…exhilarating like a rollercoaster ride. When I scanned back to look for a detail, I was surprised to see how much action there had occurred.

There are lots of philosophical “moments,” about the value of stories, the process of writing or creating, disability, and the role of technology—yes specifically, Artificial Intelligence. But they occur naturally as part of the story. One of the most outstanding and simultaneously mundane elements in this book is the main character using a wheelchair. Zelu simply has a life with many relatable or common complaints and tribulations. Her struggles with an intrusive family, a gaslighting workplace, and trying to work lead her the creation of a lifetime.

The term, “death of the author,” refers to how a reader’s opinion is all that matters (over the author’s own take). This has multiple meanings by book’s end. Okorafor couldn’t have picked a better title.

The futuristic storyline that features advanced and AI technology reminded me of Anton Hur’s recent book, Toward Eternity, and Namwali Serpell's The Old Drift.

Quotes:

I loved where stories took me. How they made me feel. How they made everyone around me feel. Stories contain our existence; they are gods. And the fact that we created them from living, experiencing, listening, thinking, feeling, giving—they remind me of what’s great about being alive.
… If she remembered anything about him, it would be the word <i>moist</i>.

… The capitalism machine had used her book, her attempt at shouting into the void, to make visual comfort food for drowsy minds….

… I know that here in the United States, such things are not understood. You all spin everything that is not familiar to you as either terrible or less than you. You only see things through your narrow lens and personal experiences. It is your weakness, I understand….

Narrative is one of the key ways automation defines the world. We Humes have always been clear about this fact. Stories are what holds things together. They make things matter, they make all things be, exist. Our codes are written in a linear fashion. Our protocols are meant to be carried out with beginnings, middles, ends. Look at how I have been built. My operating system is Ankara themed, my body etched with geometric Ankara designs. I’m the embodiment of a human story. But true storytelling has always been one of the few great things humanity could produce that no automation could. Stories were prizes to be collected, shared, protected, and experienced.

“Tomorrow is where my hope lives. I can’t be normal, so I’ll be something else.”

Zelu Onyenezi-Onyedele, left paraplegic after a childhood accident, turns the lowest point in her life into a bestselling novel. The success and notoriety that follow force her to question her identity - to her family, to her fans, to herself. Set in a modern day-adjacent Chicago, with new innovations in robotics and AI on the horizon, Zelu pursues her dreams, even if it means bucking the expectations of those around her.

I loved how this story brought commentary about the power we give to social media to tell us how to feel, how to react, or who to look up to. Audiences feel entitled to the time and attention of the public figures they glorify. An artist cannot simply create art if they gain any sort of notability from their work - they are thrust into the spotlight, forced to play the game if they want to make a paycheck. No event can pass without a demand for their take on the situation. If, as in Zelu’s case, the artist falls across multiple levels of intersectionality (she is black, female, and disabled), they have the additional burden of representing that group as well. Some people carry that burden with grace. Zelu does not.

Zelu is not always likeable. But she doesn’t try to be. As a disabled person, so much of her autonomy is questioned or withheld, especially when she makes choices that fly in the face of her family’s expectations. Her role within her family was cemented when she was twelve years old, and as Zelu explores new opportunities that come as a result of her success, her parents and siblings struggle to adapt. I would be interested in seeing how a disabled reader interprets this aspect of the story. Not all disabled people blame themselves for an acquired disability, nor do they wish they could be “cured.” Zelu’s choices allow her into more able-bodied spaces while forcing both her and her family to come to terms with decades of blame and resentment under the spotlight of her fame.

As an infrequent science fiction reader, I did not know what to expect going into reading this one, but I thought it was brilliant. Nnedi Okorafor gives the reader a rich narrative that also offers commentary on fame, parasocial relationships, loss of cultural identity, disability access, immigrant family dynamics, microaggressions in academia, and what it means to pursue your dreams. If you enjoy character-driven fiction and stories-within-stories that unapologetically celebrate the cultures of those who write them, you will love Death of the Author.

**Thank you to Harper Collins (William Morrow Imprint) and Nnedi Okorafor for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.**

Wow. Okay. I’ve read a few of Okorafor’s books before, and while I enjoyed them, Death of the Author is in its own category. It’s more complex, more layered—both in terms of storytelling and writing.

It took me a little while to settle in. The dialogue in the first couple of chapters felt a bit stilted, but once I got into the rhythm, I was in. Okorafor seamlessly weaves together two narratives, and when they finally clicked into place, I literally gasped.

This book tackles big themes—belonging, autonomy, the tension between personal identity and public perception—while delivering a story that’s thought-provoking and immersive. It has a lot to say about who gets to tell their own story and what happens when that control is taken away.

It’s also a book that can appeal to a wide range of readers. Sci-fi fans will love the book-within-a-book concept, but it’s just as compelling for those newer to the genre.

Death of the Author is sharp, compelling, and totally unlike anything I’ve read before.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow!

I will be recommending this book to book clubs and so many friends!
As someone who very rarely reads speculative or science fiction, I found this accessible, interesting, thought-provoking and fun. The book-within-a-book format was so well-done and I was equally interested in both stories. The Afrofuturism of this novel combined with the exploration of AI and a family saga was so skillfully done, and made me want to read all of Okorafor's other work. Book clubs would have so much to discuss about this one-- the ending is particularly stunning and utterly memorable-- and how this is crafted makes for such a unique reading experience that am I already certain it will stand out amongst everything else I'll read this year. Not something I would normally pick up, but I'll be thinking about this for a long time and am extremely glad I did. Thanks very much to Netgalley and HarperCollins for the advanced copy!

Death of the Author (Hardcover)
by Nnedi Okorafor
A wonderful African Futurism book that shows the nature of history, family and privilege. The idea that family can focus on one member of the family to the detriment of the others.

Wow

Blew my mind, then did it again. And again.

First book I have read by Nnedi Okorafor. I don’t read a lot of science fiction but I was gifted a copy and it sounded like a plot I would enjoy. But there was no predicting or expecting or knowing what would come next. This book was full of surprises. And it definitely made me cry, and made me laugh out loud. Okorafor does a great job developing characters and a storyline. I felt like I was part of the family, because it was written in a way that made it seem like I was right there too. I didn’t just read this book. I had an experience.

DEATH OF THE AUTHOR
Nnedi Okorafor


Let me introduce you to Zelu…

Zelu is an adjunct English professor who just got fired for unfounded reasons if you let Zelu tell it. But who cares? Zelu doesn’t. She has her sister’s wedding to attend and that is all she can worry about right now. She’ll deal with life later.

She has a good time at the wedding. She is happy to celebrate her sister, she finds a way to enjoy her family, eats a lot of good food, dances a little, and even meets a man. The morning after she sits down and begins to write.

This writing…

It is unlike anything she has ever written before. This is DEATH OF THE AUTHOR.

I’m really interested in anything that has to do with artificial intelligence. It is extremely interesting to me how this creation was invented, how it may affect the world, how we can use it, how it can use us. I loved the way AI was discussed in this book and the one inside it.

Zelu is (not maybe) one of my favorite characters ever! She is real, she is someone you know IRL, she was crafted with the rainbow, and she jumps off the page.

The alignment of the concepts of being bodiless from a human and artificial intelligence perspective was superb. My words are not giving justice to the point where those concepts collide.

The writing was stellar, the themes were on point, and I was given room to roam in the vast universe that is Nnedi Okorafor.

Thanks to Netgalley and William Morrow for the advanced copy!

We read DEATH OF THE AUTHOR and discussed it in our Under The Radar Book Club. You can find us on Amazon and Fable. Join us, we’d love to have you.

DEATH OF THE AUTHOR…⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“True storytelling has always been one of the few great things humanity could produce that no automation could” (412).

There was so much I loved about this novel, but at its core, the emphasis on the power of a story—both stories written for an audience and the stories we tell ourselves—is what will stick with me.

This is a novel about stories and automation. Complex and sometimes confusing in the novel within a novel. I was intrigued by the main character, the author, a paraplegic who is to trying to live her life with cultural expectations. She is not a conformist. Her siblings are resentful and overbearing and her parents, from different African tribes, are somewhat judgemental and unsupported. Take the sci -fi story she writes about automation ant survival. It was a miss for me and added too much complexity in comparison to the author's existence.

Copy provided by the publisher and NetGalley

This is a hard book to categorize, but I liked it a lot! Multi-genre, with a contemporary story about a paraplegic Nigerian-American author interspersed with a post-apocalyptic hard sci-fi novel-within-a-novel. I’ve always loved the story-within-a-story structure, and true to form I preferred that half of this book. The culture and food of Nigeria were deeply embedded in the contemporary half, which I loved, but Zelu’s large family was so oppressively condescending and horrible to her that reading those sections of the book often enraged me.

Went back and forth on how I felt about this book the whole read and ended up with it was fine. The bait / secret that the interviews dangle over the reader the entire time was kind of a let down and/or became discernible as soon as the setup for the real event was mentioned and that always bugs me (mostly the dangling, less so where it went, though that also bugged compared to what could have been done with that device). Unlike many reviews, I did mostly enjoy the dual narrative and wish we would have gotten even more detail in the novel portions.

<i>Thanks to Harper Collins for an eARC of this book.</i>

4.5 Stars

Thank you to NetGalley, Nnedi Okorafor, and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I immensely enjoyed and was very impressed with this!

This was a new to me author, although apparently she has written a TON and has won like a bazillion awards already so where have I been? Anyways, Death of the Author (DOTA) is about a disabled Nigerian-American who writes a novel that suddenly skyrockets her to fame and fortune.

The novel that the main character writes is called Rusted Robots (RR), and chapters of RR are interspersed throughout DOTA. Both DOTA and RR are sci-fi novels, but RR seems to take place in the distant future (Maybe the year is 2500 or something?) while the DOTA world is very similar to our own just with some advancements we don't have yet (so maybe 2050?). Both are very well written and engaging and they intertwine together in interesting ways.

I feel like if I had known beforehand that this was going to be a book-within-a-book situation, I probably would have passed on it. It's easy for this trope to just turn into a mess, but Okorafor absolutely NAILS IT.

It is largely character driven and there are a lot of intricate relationships. The relationship between the main character of DOTA (Zelu) and her family was difficult for me to read at times because her fam is (for the most part) so controlling and overbearing, and really... kinda toxic and abusive! But there are some nice character arcs, and I did like the *real-ness* of it all. And the ending was very clever, and surprising.

Overall, I loved it.

Thanks to William Morrow for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I have mixed feelings on this. I liked the full project and appreciated what Okorafor was saying, but I had a few qualms. On one hand, I loved how Okorafor provided some chapters of "Rusted Robots" so that we could get a glimpse into what Zelu wrote. On the other hand, I couldn't decide if it was necessary to include these chapters either. The whole novel was longer than I expected, and I don't think the story warrants its length. The themes were intriguing and paralleled with the main storyline with Zelu, but some were kinda boring at the start. Also, we would get "interludes" in the form of interviews from her immediate family and anyone else who was close to her. I was conflicted on the necessity of including them as well. The main story with Zelu's rise to fame and leaning towards "becoming something else" was frustrating, intriguing, emotional, and kinda a headache.

Overall, I am somewhat in the middle here but sticking to 3.5 stars.

This was my first Nnedi Okorafor book and I really loved it! After hearing comparisons to Yellowface, this was an automatic must-read for me.

I loved Zulu as an MC and felt an immediate connection with her. Despite her imperfections, she was very likable and relatable. The robot characters were also surprisingly wholesome and I loved their story in contrast (and in comparison) to Zulu’s.

Considering the longer length, the lack of straightforward plot made this a bit slow at times. However, as someone who prefers character-focused books, I still really enjoyed and would recommend to others with similar preferences.

This book was a ride!! I’m typically not a sci-fi reader, but the premise of this was so interesting and there was a lot of great physical disability awareness. I loved that Zelu’s actual novel was interspersed into the overall novel. I just couldn’t get over how selfish she could be, especially when her family did so much to try and help and support her. Overall great read!

Really thoughtful writing, I enjoyed so many elements of this, specifically the writing of the protagonist. Grateful for the chance to read this!

Okay so I really liked the main storyline of this book, but I have the hardest time when there’s a book within a book that the main character has written, because then I get pulled out of the main story and while I could see the ties between the main characters story and the novel she wrote that we’re also getting, we aren’t getting that ENTIRE book, just pieces.

Also, there’s interview snippets with some members of her family and her boyfriend in between chapters sometimes, and I wasn’t sure if that really added to the story much.

I really loved the main character Zelu, however her family was SO frustrating. Toxic, not supportive, truth the worst. Everytime they were together talking to her I was angry with their responses.

I was rooting for Zelu the entire novel and for her to accomplish everything she wanted to and to have all the success.

Overall, I thought this was decent, a little long (16 hours on audio and I felt that 16 hours). But an interesting read. I didn’t really feel it was TOO sci-fi if that makes sense? More contemporary literature with some sci-fi elements.

Thank you @netgalley and @williammorrowbooks for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

This story, the mechanics and the characters started off so strong. A story of a human finding purpose and respect. It held my interest until around 70% in. The pieces I thought were coming together never really came together and the experience as a reader went off the rails a bit.

I was even hanging in there for a while with Zelu despite her extreme selfishness. I’m not sure I felt a strong positive connection to any characters.

There is some social commentary and weird use of a nice billionaire? I’m really not sure the purpose of focusing on automation and human storytelling.

Initially, I felt the end was rushed, but if I reflect on how I felt in the last 20%, I hated it. It almost felt like an entirely new book. All of a sudden, family members who were so mean and anti-Zelu anything were suddenly ok with her going to space?I felt the book opened up some places for social commentary and then just kept perpetuating what we know about those social issues.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆ (4/5)

Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor is a genre-bending masterpiece that had me hooked from the first page. Zelu's journey from a struggling writer to a celebrated author is both inspiring and thought-provoking. The way Okorafor intertwines Zelu's personal story with her sci-fi creation, Rusted Robots, is nothing short of brilliant. The novel delves deep into themes of identity, fame, and the blurred lines between fiction and reality. While the narrative is rich and layered, some parts felt a bit dense, but overall, it's a compelling read that showcases Okorafor's exceptional storytelling prowess.

I wanted so badly to love this book, but I found it just okay! I think what really did this book a disservice was the marketing campaign. This marketing made me feel like this was a once-in-a-generation book, a genre-defying masterclass - and it was just a run of the mill contemporary fiction with scifi elements. It DID have a twist at the end that made me rethink everything I'd read, which I LOVED, but it felt like it came too late to save the book for me!

I will say, I didn't see the twist coming AT ALL which is commendable! I was just disappointed based on how highly this book was talked up.

3.5 stars rounded up