Brown Girl in the Ring

This was a fascinating book that crosses many subgenres - dystopian, fantasy, magical realism, myth and, to me, even horror. I was really intrigued by the Caribbean cultural infusion used for the mythos since I am unfamiliar with it and it made me want to research to learn more about it. The characters are all well-written and interesting with flaws as well as virtue. Even though, the antagonist is portrayed as extremely vile and evil, we still get enough backstory to see more to him even if it doesn't make us particularly sympathetic to him. This was my first Nalo Hopkinson novel but it certainly won't be my last!

Downtown Toronto has been abandoned—the wealthier citizens have fled to the suburbs, and roadblocks are in place to keep out what they consider the riffraff. A barter economy and traditional medicinal remedies have sprung up, as well as opportunistic gangs. Ti-Jeanne’s grandmother, Mami, does a brisk trade in the medicine side of things; unfortunately, Ti-Jeanne’s boyfriend (and the father of her child) has been involved in one of the worst gangs. There is great evil lurking in this new world, and Ti-Jeanne has to channel her spiritual abilities to fight it.

This was a compelling book. It was dystopia with dashes of magical realism: the various gods that came to interact with the humans made for some powerful scenes. The pages show more practically turned themselves. There was one really gross scene where someone was flayed alive, and I turned the pages a LOT more quickly at that point because I was eating lunch when that scene came up D: But wow did Hopkinson ever pack a punch with her descriptions. I’m going to be thinking of that scene for weeks.

This is a great book if you like speculative fiction set in Canada, books focusing on female protagonists, and stories that involve interaction between gods and humans. show less

The tale of a Carribean healer-woman, her granddaughter, and a gangster who maintains his power with the help of a hungry spirit, set in the decaying remains of an inner-city Toronto that's been cut off from the suburban world outside it.

And an enjoyable tale it was. The West Indian magic and traditions were fascinating and vividly rendered, the main character was believable, and the plot engaging. There's also a lovely sense of humanity underlying it all. I may have to check out more by this author.

(4.5)

Thank you so much, , for letting me borrow some books during this quarantine period! And what a book, too. This is the kind of book I’ve been wanting to read for a really long time. The atmosphere, the involvement of gods that aren’t caricatures, the character growth, etc. It’s all beautifully done and wonderfully written!

Content warnings:
- transmisogynistic violence
- drug use
- domestic abuse (in chapter header poems)
- n slur
- romani slur

Representation:
- the main character, her family, and her lover is black
- there is a romani side character
- many other secondary & side characters are black & diverse as well (LGBT; other ethnicities mentioned in passing)

Now that the government and the wealthy have abandoned Toronto and show more barricaded the poor and less privileged inside, the inner city has become home to old-world farming, trade, and religion. It’s also home to body harvesting, with so many street kids running around ready for the picking. When one wealthy politician from the suburbs outside needs a heart transplant, Ti-Jeanne and her grandmother become involved with the city’s posse and its schemes. Soon, they’ll have no one else to turn to except for the gods and rituals Ti-Jeanne has been trying to avoid her entire life.

So, again, this is the type of book I’ve been LONGING for for YEARS. A mature book with an in-depth world respectfully dealing with religion and gods interacting with the characters. Nalo Hopkinson has been on my to-read list for forever, and I’m so glad this novel was sent to me because it made me read it now. This is the kind of god-respecting mythology book we’ve all been needing! Finally, something that respects the religion it borrows from instead of taking whatever you please and turning gods into caricatures of themselves for your own use. Especially a religion that is still in use today, such as this book’s “vodun”, practiced by about 30 million people in West Africa.

While it took me a good while to warm up to Ti-Jeanne, the protagonist (because she was particularly resentful, coarse, and looked down upon others), I especially loved her character arc. I eventually did warm up to her as the book went on and felt very protective of her. In fact, everyone’s characterization is wonderful and well-developed. Some don’t get the ending I expected -- while others get the ones I secretly hoped they would. The book takes you through one hell of a family drama and into some dark waters while it’s at it. But for such a short book, it feels like it packs a huge plot, great world building, and some profound character arcs while not constantly moving at breakneck speed.

There’s not much I don’t like, to be honest (except Ti-Jeanne’s lover, Tony, but as I mentioned before: everyone had their arcs and their roles to play). This is exactly the book I needed at exactly the right moment. I’m so grateful to my friend for letting me borrow it. show less

Sometimes I'm in this weird mood when I watch people recommend books I would've love to read as a teenager.

It sometimes feels liked I missed out because I do think I needed those kind of books then. Maybe it would've broadened my mind so much earlier and my puberty wouldn't feel as lonely. To not only read about (lightskinned) men be the heroes. To not read about (lightskinned) women who could fight but still had a male as their companions. They never had adventures alone. To know that people with a skin like mine or darker could actually write stories in the genre I liked instead of only writing stories with a slave-narrative.

Then again, puberty sucks for (almost) everybody so who knows how I would've turned out.

This review first appeared on Sci Fi and Scary

Nalo Hopkinson is an author I only heard of very recently. Having now read one of her books I’m kind of appalled that is the case. ‘Brown Girl in the Ring’ is her debut novel, first published back in 1998, and it’s so good that I wish I’d been reading her books for years. It’s a brilliantly entertaining mix of dystopian near future science fiction and Caribbean folklore, told with skill, humour and humanity.
The book is set in a grim, desolate Toronto that has been abandoned by business and the government and is now populated by an impoverished underclass struggling to survive daily life. Against this backdrop, Nalo Hopkinson spins an intriguing tale that involves a small time show more criminal who is hired to procure a human heart to be used in a transplant operation needed by the Canadian prime minister. The story focuses on the impact of this on a group of characters in Toronto, particularly the one-time girlfriend of the criminal, a young woman called Ti-Jeanne who is the book’s protagonist.
Of course, books about near future dystopias and the desperate characters that inhabit them are nothing new, and at times ‘Brown Girl in the Ring’ is a little reminiscent of other things (particularly the work of fellow Canadian William Gibson). Fortunately, there are numerous things that set it apart from the crowd. Most notably, Jamaican-born Hopkinson explores Caribbean folklore extensively. The book is full of magic, both benign and malicious. This develops as the story progresses from small hints to something that transforms the novel into something richer and more wonderful than the first few chapters suggest.
Throughout the pacing is excellent, with a gradual ramp up of incident until the gripping climax. The characters are generally great too, the bad guys can be a little cliched, but Ti-Jeanne and her family are a delight. They’re engaging, believable and likeable, and speak dialogue that flows off the page with a lovely rhythm. All this combines into a read that’s compelling, moving and memorable. If you fancy something a little different from the normal whitewash of western sci fi it’s well worth a look. show less

This is a kind of speculative fantasy book, set in a post-economic meltdown Toronto, a city where 'white flight' to the surrounding suburbs has been so extreme that the city centre itself has been closed off and abandoned to poor, mostly non-white inhabitants. For a first novel, it's really well done, and there's a lot in it to admire: all the main characters are PoC; they're fighting back against colonisation (in some instances a very literal colonisation—they're being killed for their hearts); motherhood is recognised as being difficult, breast-feeding as emotionally and physically tiring; Hopkinson gives her characters Creole-inflected dialogue and draws from a literary and spiritual tradition that's not given enough respect in the show more white West. Hopkinson also manages the difficult task of having her characters make mistakes, and yet remain mostly likeable. (There was one decision/emotional reaction of Ti-Jeanne's at the end which irritated me a lot, though.) I didn't love Brown Girl in the Ring, but it certainly engaged my attention and entertained me, and I would be very interested to read more of Hopkinson's work and to follow her maturation as a writer. show less