A review by dilchh
Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor

4.0

I have loved the first book from the series, Akata Witch. It was such an amazing book, one I’ve never read before. Sure, if you look at the premise, it’s your run of the mill fantasy book; a girl discovers she has hidden powers, met with great friends, fight the evil in the world, yadda yadda. But, though the premise seems the same as other fantasy books, the fantasy aspects of this book is what set it apart. I have never read a book with fantasy aspects that takes place in countries that are not, either, in Europe or America, so this definitely was a refreshing place to start.

The world of Leopard people brought to life through Sunny’s adventure with her friends, Chichi, Sasha, and Orlu, made me want to be a Leopard myself but then the dark world, the evil mischief made me glad I’m your regular non-magic person. Right, enough of me rambling nonsense. The follow up book to Akata Witch was something I cannot wait. I wanted to know what could be in store for Sunny after the amazing battle in the first book.

I was in for a ride. This book was jammed packed, way more than the first one. I even felt sorry for Sunny. She got not rest at all. One after another she is thrown into the world of fighting for her life, or somebody else’s life. I do not know how Sunny manage to balance her regular and her Leopard life. Picking this book up is guaranteed to not want to put it down, for fear that you might miss something from Sunny’s adventure. That being said, the first half of the book will surely would make you want to put down the book. If not for my huge love for the story, I would have put down the book altogether.

The first half of the book moves incredibly slow. It was filled with Sunny’s attempt in learning new things, and to that extent will make the reader learn more about the Leopard background, but dear God, it’s incredibly boring, I almost fell asleep every time I pick the book up. It was not lost to me that I questioned did this book was written by the same person that wrote Akata Witch, because this book was darn boring.

Surely the background should have been covered in the first book, as opposed in the second book. I really could not wrapped my head around the fact that I still have to learn about Sunny’s studies in the second book, in vivid details no less. I understand that giving context is important so people can catch up after probably forgetting what had happened in the first book, but to actually almost took half of the second book for that? Yeah, that’s just a bit too much.

But, I’m glad I march on through because what it lacks in the first half of the book, it made up for the many adventures that happened in the second half. I can’t even believe when the book ends, I really wanted to read more. I was on a flight to Tokyo from Houston when I finished this book, and I cannot even begin to tell you how much I wanted to shout in excitement over the battles that happened in the book but cannot because of the small tight space I was in.