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A review by daja
The Smoke That Thunders by Erhu Kome
Did not finish book. Stopped at 18%.
I wouldn’t say that I had high hopes going into this story, but I really did expect to like this story. Whenever I read a book by a Black author, I always try look for things about the story that the author did well, However, reading The Smoke that Thunders made that hard. I DNF’ed the story at 18%.
This story follows Naborhi, a sixteen-year-old girl living in a small, traditional community. Naborhi’s family arranges for her to marry a man who upholds these traditional ideals, but she does not want to marry him or live the traditional life of a young woman in this society. Then she becomes bonded to a mysterious animal that opens her eyes to more things happening in the world.
My main problem with this story is the writing. At first, I thought I was getting into a YA book because that is what this book is being marketed as. This does not read like one. If anything, it reads more like a middle grade story in terms of the craft. The content itself does feel YA with a persistent theme on being a young woman groomed to be married, but not exploring that that theme in depth enough to actually make any notable commentary on them. It was surface level feminism at best to watch Naborhi say how much she didn’t want a traditional marriage.
The voice of the writing wasn’t my only hiccup with it. I feel like the scene transitions were jarring. Something would happen and then it would move on even though felt like there was supposed to be something more added to it (a character thought, more description, etc). It happened a little too frequently for me to truly get hooked into the story.
I think because of the basic craft issues I had with this story, everything fell flat. The world building made sense, from what I read, but from what I read, it didn’t really offer anything unique the other YA fantasy stories. (If I would have continued, maybe I would change my mind?) The characters feel like caricatures from most other YA fantasies, being very one dimensional so that I didn’t care for any of them. The plot itself had pacing issues, which I blame on the scene transitions but it also just could have been the plot points and meandering through details that didn’t seem to matter.
Overall, I don’t think I’d recommend this book to anyone. I don’t know who the intended audience is because the writing felt middle grade but the content felt YA. I just also don’t think it’s good on a craft level. But I’m just one person. Maybe try it for yourself to see if you like it.
This story follows Naborhi, a sixteen-year-old girl living in a small, traditional community. Naborhi’s family arranges for her to marry a man who upholds these traditional ideals, but she does not want to marry him or live the traditional life of a young woman in this society. Then she becomes bonded to a mysterious animal that opens her eyes to more things happening in the world.
My main problem with this story is the writing. At first, I thought I was getting into a YA book because that is what this book is being marketed as. This does not read like one. If anything, it reads more like a middle grade story in terms of the craft. The content itself does feel YA with a persistent theme on being a young woman groomed to be married, but not exploring that that theme in depth enough to actually make any notable commentary on them. It was surface level feminism at best to watch Naborhi say how much she didn’t want a traditional marriage.
The voice of the writing wasn’t my only hiccup with it. I feel like the scene transitions were jarring. Something would happen and then it would move on even though felt like there was supposed to be something more added to it (a character thought, more description, etc). It happened a little too frequently for me to truly get hooked into the story.
I think because of the basic craft issues I had with this story, everything fell flat. The world building made sense, from what I read, but from what I read, it didn’t really offer anything unique the other YA fantasy stories. (If I would have continued, maybe I would change my mind?) The characters feel like caricatures from most other YA fantasies, being very one dimensional so that I didn’t care for any of them. The plot itself had pacing issues, which I blame on the scene transitions but it also just could have been the plot points and meandering through details that didn’t seem to matter.
Overall, I don’t think I’d recommend this book to anyone. I don’t know who the intended audience is because the writing felt middle grade but the content felt YA. I just also don’t think it’s good on a craft level. But I’m just one person. Maybe try it for yourself to see if you like it.