A review by choicepotatoes_oldo20230731
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

adventurous dark fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

STAR RATING

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★★★☆☆
enjoyable enough


NUMERICAL RATING

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3.25
this book has so much potential; i wanted to enjoy it so much more than i actually did


REVIEW

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I never thought I would wind up reading Binti more than once, but I recently discovered Robin Miles and was curious to know if I'd enjoy her fiction narration just as much as I enjoyed her narration of Caste.

As it turned out:

  • Miles' narration of Binti confirmed her as one of my favorite audio book narrators
  • It may have something to do with the above bullet point, but Binti is arguably better as an audio book than an ebook

Although Binti was, for the most part, enjoyable, there were a couple of things I found off-putting:

Between Binti's arrival on The Third Fish and the arrival of the Meduse on the ship, Okorafor attempts a sort of "making friends, developing a crush, etc" montage.

We don't learn much about Binti, the ship, or the university during the montage. I also didn't form any real or lasting emotional connection to her shipmates (although, I will admit, I was absolutely prepared to).

Because of this, the murder of everyone on the ship was anti-climactic. Had it been set up differently, it could have been a highly emotional moment that pulled me further into the story and caused me to feel great conflict about Okwu throughout the remainder of the book. Instead, I was left feeling underwhelmed and--quite frankly--more betrayed than if I'd formed deep connections with those side characters only to have them cruelly ripped away from me.


The second off-putting thing, I only really realized after finishing the second book in the series:


Binti doesn't feel like a whole story that stands on its own. It's more complete than the second book, but in retrospect, it feels like a very detailed backstory whose primary purpose is to strengthen the third and final book in the series.

It's true that both the first and second book go a long way towards making the third as strong as it is, but I'm wondering whether both books couldn't somehow have been integrated into the third, as opposed to being two very fleshed-out fragments of backstory in a three-part novella.


All that said, I appreciate this book more the second time through, and especially while reading the third book in the series for the second time. I'm no longer convinced this won't be a book I'll return to, and I'm more convinced to try reading some of Okorafor's other books a second time.
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