Akata Witch

Sunny is an albino girl in Nigeria, and so she has always felt different from everyone else. But little did she know that she's actually a Leopard, magical humans that live among us unsuspecting Lambs. Two of her schoolmates introduce her to the Leopard world, and once she is initiated her albinism turns from a hindrance to a gift. But not everything is fun and games, because the Lamb newspapers are full of stories of a madman kidnapping and murdering children in Nigeria and Sunny and her friends are the only ones who can stop him.

The plot of this book leaves a little to be desired, but the world-building is AMAZING. Every fascinating detail is well-thought out, from a library full of magic books to a magical wrestling match to cute show more magical creatures only Leopards can see. I'm dying to read more and will be picking other books by Nnedi Okorafor ASAP. Highly, highly recommended. show less

We've all read this story. It's an old standard that's possibly been around, in one form or another, for millennia: A young person (in our case a girl, Sunny Nwazue,) an outsider bullied by her family and peers, discovers that she has within her a talent, a power, and with her few friends goes on to save the world from a horrible villain.

What makes this story worth reading is the atypical setting, the atypical style of magic, and the atypically excellent skill of the author to present a character that one cares for within a world that some people today might believe actually exists! The story is set in Nigeria, where some people do have a belief in Voodoo, so when Sunny, an emigrant from the United States, starts to display a talent show more for juju and becomes identified as a "Leopard Person" (an actual cult in Nigeria,) the boundary between reality and fantasy becomes quite blurry for the reader. Is the author, Nnedi Okorafor, describing a fantasy world of her own creation or is she describing, or at least mixing in, elements of the Voodoo beliefs and juju practices that play a part in the lives of some present day Nigerians? Whatever the answer, Akata Witch takes full advantage of the mystique and the ambivalence.

As Nnedi's world slides between reality and fantasy, so does her protagonist, Sunny. She is interstitial, someone between, sliding from a 21st century reality of school bullies and a father who beats her to a way of dealing with the world through magic; from a material realm to a spiritual realm; from an American girl with Nigerian parents to a Nigerian emigre, not completely accepted. She is a black girl who is an albino. She is someone who exists between realities but partakes in all.

Although the story is directly aimed at the middle school / young adult market, any adult with an interest in a fascinating take on a very ethnically-based fantasy would enjoy it. I certainly did! My only complaint about the story and the reason I'm giving it four stars rather than five is the way the climax was handled. I felt that the particular nature of Sunny's ability at that crucial juncture required more extensive foreshadowing, as it had a distinct deus ex machina flavor without that elaboration.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. show less

This was an awesome MG/YA fantasy that was steeped in the Otherworldly, ever elusive art of the Juju and other African mysticisms. Akata Witch was an engrossing Coming of Age tale of 4 African children (2 transplanted from America) who were immersed in the intricacies and secret nuances found primarily in Nigerian folklore. I love a good story based on a cultures' Mythology...especially ones that are completely foreign to me...you never know that you don't know something until you're exposed to the truth of things but what I NOW know (my apologies, I can't seem to stop saying that word at the moment) is that I am bewitched and that I have fallen hopelessly in love with this world! The book was about 4 young kids making what is show more essentially a Coven and the perils associated with their World. The MC is an Albino girl who learns of, as well as hones, her newfound powers in a refreshingly new (if such a thing can be called that wrt this genre that is oft times overly trope-ic...don't judge, it's a thing, I think) manner. The world building was phenomenal and incredibly imaginative BUT more importantly, it was undeniably and blessedly Unique!! The characters were endearing and perfectly humanly flawed (which I love love LOVE!). I adore a good yarn that has its characters actually working for their progress and growth... working to become worthy of a whole books' praise and notoriety. Even the tertiary characters were crafted with precision as well as being undeniably interesting. The whole book was addictive from the first chapter on and was in a voice & tone that I rarely come across... which again labels it as ridiculously refreshing! I am anxious to see what is in-store for our 4 young leading personalities and especially for our Free Agent/MC Sunny. I highly recommend this book and am (not so) patiently awaiting book #2!!

End of rambling... show less

Akata Witch’s strength is its setting: a fully-realised, diverse magical community in Nigeria, the hub of a wider African magical world. Instead of wands, practitioners carry juju knives; characters come from a range of different African ethnic and linguistic groups. Nnedi Okorafor’s magical-realist world-building is fantastic, and the aspect of this book which I enjoyed most.

It’s possible that the book would work better on the whole for its intended audience (young adult) than it did for me, though. The pacing is off, the four main characters act more like 16 or 17 year olds than they do prepubescent 12 year olds, and there are wild tonal shifts and odd emotional responses (or to be more precise, a lack of emotional response) show more which are just jarring. Major things happen to all the child characters but with no real sense of emotional consequence, and I really didn’t like the implications of magic “fixing” Sunny’s albinism. That’s tapping into an ugly trope about disability in fiction. show less

3.5 stars.

This was fun! It's been a while since I read middle grade and it was great to get to this finally after hearing so many good things. I actually thought this was written for a slightly older audience going in and I probably would have had different expectations but I did still have a good time.

The world Okorafor sets up is really compelling. This book is set in Nigeria and there is a parallel magical society that Sunny discovers she's a part of. I really enjoyed this set up and learning about this magical society alongside Sunny. The other characters she meets are also very fun. Reading this, it kind of felt like a series of little vignettes where Sunny and her friends go on little adventures together and I think that's a show more really good set up for this type of book.

I do wish that the big final battle felt a little bit more dramatic. It was over very quickly and I would have liked if there was more of a connection to the antagonist throughout the book rather than just close to the end. It was still an interesting lead up but I did like some of the other smaller plot points that happened earlier more than the final event.

This was a really fun book and I would consider reading book two. I also want to read Binti by this author so I will definitely reading more from her in the future. show less

Excellent, excellent book! This is only the second series that I’ve read which explores African magic, and unsurprisingly I’m totally hooked. There’s lots of similarities with other cultural magic systems (magic is magic, and it’s semantics that differentiate them), but it’s still interesting getting to learn about how sorcerers from other cultures harness and use their magic. In this story, our protagonist Sunny discovers that she is one of the magical people of Africa - a Leopard Person - and embarks on a journey with a group of newfound friends to discover her magic. Little does Sunny know at the outset of this journey, but she and her friends are destined to confront and take down the generation’s most dangerous and evil show more magician who has remained undefeated for years and is putting the whole magical community (and the world) in danger. While we’ve seen this storytelling trope before in many tales of youthful self/magical discovery, Okorafor has created highly developed characters, set up the bones for a magical world ripe for exploration, and gives us just enough sparkle throughout the story to keep us hooked until the very end. With our protagonist, she has also created a character who is one in a million, as Sunny grapples with many challenges which set her outside her community - she’s African, but born in America; she’s a girl, but refuses not to challenge the boys in the traditional African patriarchal society; and she’s Albino, which sets her apart even amongst her magical community for her ability to walk between worlds. Her ancestral magic, which skipped a generation from her grandmother, is also extremely intriguing, as we barely touched on some of these abilities which hint to a greater innate power than many of the Leopard People, which is specifically linked to her ties to the spirit world. This series only has one more book, so I can’t wait to find out where Sunny will go next in her journey of magical discovery. show less

I loved this book so much.

I was trying to describe this to a friend, and I think I used the words, "like Harry Potter but in Nigeria," which I guess was kind of true but also an incredible disservice to Okorafor's amazing world-building and story-telling, which should never be implied as being inferior to or copying another work. But for somebody who has not read much non-Western based speculative fiction, that was the easiest way to describe it (both for me and for my friend).

This book defied categorization - the age of the protagonist should have put this book in the middle-grade category or at least young adult, but the complexity of the plot and it's exploration of some darker themes involving serial killers, combat to the death, show more and even a brief mention of cannibalism made me think I was reading an adult fantasy, and I had to keep reminding myself that the main characters were ages twelve to fourteen.

It's hard to put into words just how much I loved this book. I read it in one exhausting day of traveling from DC to Des Moines, and I read the majority of it in the air between DC and Chicago and in Chicago Midway Airport. The story was so incredibly compelling that I was able to block out the plane full of middle-schoolers (as an aside -- Really, universe? Really? What did I do to make me deserve that?) and a noisy airport to be completely transported to Nigeria, with a hidden magical society and a serial killer intent on raising an ancient evil to reshape the world.

Recommended for all fantasy readers. show less