A review by alas_aly
Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I really struggle because I genuinely don't like books that are mostly about how bad everything is. Ugh, this is actually really hard to define. I can appreciate a book about a person and the difficulties that they might go through because of how bad everything is. I just struggle with stories that forefront the badness at the expense of the characters which I think this book did. Who were Kevin and Ella? They were empathetic, smart, angry, and black. That didn't feel like enough to me and I was always distant from them as characters. 
That being said, its not wrong. We do live in a world where violence is perpetrated on Black people constantly. You can't individualize yourself out of it by being good or learning to see what is good about your life. I believe that the system is bad and that violence may be the answer to that. I guess I just don't love reading about it?
The writing was excellent. It was vivid like this was a movie being told to you very well. I could clearly picture everything that was happening in the story. I think that even if the characters weren't super well-realized, the archetypes were very clear to me. I think their motivations were spot - on and clear. 
This leaves me in a somewhat muddy place. Did I like this book? I don't think so. Or not very much. Is it a good book? I think it is even if it wasn't right for me. 
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