Reviews

The Half-God of Rainfall by Inua Ellams

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theroamingleo's review

3.75

Crazy book. Didn’t except that with the main guy. Enjoyed listening to Inua Ellams narrate. Too much (g)rape talk for me, even if there is a lot of that within the Greek pantheon. Interesting take on the gods.

05hamiltonk's review against another edition

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4.0

Soo poetic and beautifully written. I expected this to be a novel but it’s really a short story written in verse, when it was first delivered I was disappointed but after reading it I loved it as it was. A powerful story, a fuck you to male dominance, violence and abuse of power. I can imagine it as a play, definitely one to be read aloud. FYI you can read it in one sitting.

kiramke's review against another edition

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3.0

Original, inventive, not a retelling or interpretation but a direct response. I like this, I like the nod to classic format as a play in verse, I like the intertwining of Yoruba mythology, and I appreciate the thought behind it all. My reservations may be more about how it was marketed to me, or just where my thoughts have been recently regarding mythologies. And they are: for a story about vengeance from and solidarity for female victims, most of this story centers around men. The heroine acts not in defense of herself but her child. The women, the victims, are ultimately mostly unnamed. I'm inclined to think the focus is just on how we-general-society react to the ongoing abuse of women, and that's why, and maybe I just really needed more about specifically Zeus' victims taking him down. Listen, it's been a long quarantine, I listened to a lot of Greek mythology and it revived my grudge with Zeus. 3.5, and maybe I'll raise it.

shoshomyeza's review against another edition

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5.0

It’s spectacular. Wow.
But my only question is: how sure are we that history won’t repeat itself? Ellams portrays this splendid and dramatic overthrow of a supreme abuser. But Zeus was allowed by the other gods to do what he did. So when Modupe kills Zeus, does she also kill the attitudes, the norms, the system that allowed him to abuse all of those women?
I love that this book didn’t leave me with not a happily ever after but with: how do you tear down a tyrant and the system, environment, paradigms that let him succeed in the first place.
Ellams, brilliant.