Reviews - Somadina | The StoryGraph

365 reviews for:

Somadina

Akwaeke Emezi

4.2 AVERAGE

clarag's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

jesslinkletter's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The joy I felt when I stumbled upon this new Akwaeke Emezi book at the library is indescribeable. This is a magical, inventive journey of Somadina, a girl cast out by her family and community by their fear of her differences, and her unbreakable bond with her twin brother. Akwaeke Emezi has such incredible talent for telling very engaging stories steeped culture and real world connections. Somadina, Jayaike, and Uwafulamiro are a trio representing the resiliency that societal outcasts build through community, and I love all three of them as characters and the transformation undergo, both in a magical and a personal development sense. As always, I love how ingrained queerness is in Emezi's stories and the way that opens the door for more expansive, complex forms of love to build between characters outside of a heteronormative relationship.

juanitamfm's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This is a great YA fantasy adventure. The characters were super lovable and the way it was written kinda leaves the door open for a sequel which I would love 😍

xxivo's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous challenging dark emotional fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I was so excited to read another book by Emezi and they totally delivered.

After having read PET and BITTER I had high hopes for another YA book by Emezi but made sure to go in totally blind.
It quite surprised me to see the jump from magical realism to fantasy but this book did it so well. The world is so rich of history and stories there was always something interesting to uncover. This uncovering of the lore of the world was something always a theme of this book up until the last moment when everything unravels. And gosh did this often blow me away with how awesome it was and pull me right in wanting to read more.

The main characters as a brother and sister was really fun. I loved how they were twins and had an incredibly close bond. When that bond starts to fray however I was so worried about them and hopeful that things would end up better at some point. This longing for them both to be together again was really strong throughout the whole book and kept me on the edge of my seat wanting to know if they might be fine on the next page.

I also really loved how the good and bad parts of family dynamics were shown in this book. There were feelings of still loving a family member even though they've harmed you, and the way others sometimes can totally fill that gap. But sometimes things get so bad there is no forgiving anymore and the characters were only left with grief. This hit me really hard and was written beautifully.

Concluding I'd recommend this book for everyone who likes fantasy with big world building and family relations.

I received an eARC and this was my honest opinion.

wickerlibrary's review against another edition

3.0

fast-paced

loved emezi's writing as usual, and the magic system and setting here was wonderful. however, this ended up being a letdown for me, as the main character did not go through much development at all and remained very frustrating to read about as compared to the flawed but still riveting characters i've read from emezi before so consistently. the ending was also incredibly fast, and wrapped up way too easily and perfectly and did not feel earned in any way. the whole novel went by so quickly that i found myself detached from the plot, but mostly detached and frustrated by the main character and how we were always being TOLD what her connection to her twin was rather than really getting to SEE it and feel like we CARED. also the random bursts of jealousy and impatience from somadina was endlessly irritating because once again, we never saw that explored or challenged or redeemed. by the end her flaws just felt so surface-level and it made it harder to sympathize with her actions.