Binti has been on my TBR pile for a long time, so when someone suggested it for the Vaginal Fantasy give-Veronica-some-suggestions-for-January vote, it voted for it and was really pleased when Veronica picked it for the January book I was pleased. I will note, it’s a bit off brand for Vaginal Fantasy as it doesn’t contain a romance at all, but I’m ok with that. I’m… not really sure how I feel about it. It was fine, but it didn’t really draw me in. One of the resolutions in this book turned my stomach enough to put me off the remaining two books.
Binti is a young woman who comes from a people who don’t often, ever, leave their homeworld. However, she decides to set out and accept the scholarship to an off world university. In transit, her ship is attacked by one of the alien races, this particular race has been at war with a subset of humans for a long time, and this civilian ship full of scholars and potential scholars is a casualty of that war. This next bit is spoilery, but this book is so short it’s hard to discuss anything without talking about the whole plot. Binti is the only survivor because she has a macguffin that both injures these aliens on contact and allows her to communicate with them. She figures out the reason for the current attack and offers to act as ambassador and then fixes it. And everyone just kind of brushes over the murder of several hundred civilians because some chief lost his stinger. In addition, Binti is physically altered, without her consent to allow for communication without the macguffin AND EVERYONE IS OK WITH THIS. And that’s the end of the book.
The book is a mixed bag for me. The writing is very good. You can feel the clay of Binti’s homeworld, and smell the greenness of the ship. The world building, though not explored a lot, makes enough sense that you can tell there is more there. And yet, those two spoilery plot points are so repugnant to me that I can’t say I liked the book.
I don’t think I can recommend this book, nor can I say don’t read it. This is one you’re going to have to figure out on your own.
I did not like this book! I have also tried other Nnedi Okorafor books/stories and her prose seems to bounce off me like a magnet. I think I will spare myself the trouble in the future. This whole thing needed so much more development especially SPOILER if they alien who murdered hundreds of humans gets a free pass NBD. I wish I liked this the way other people seem to, but its appeal almost completely escapes me.
That spoiler was such a weird thing, and seemed so contrary to the rest of the book that I can’t really understand it. I’ll probably try a few more Okorafor’s books before I decide she’s not for me, but at the moment that’s what it’s looking like.
Ooh, interesting. This one’s been on my list for a while, but I might bump it down a few notches if you and narfna aren’t fans. Hmmmm.