By: Dianah,
on 3/19/2015
My advice on this book: do not read any reviews, blurbs, synopses, or even the back cover (or front, for that matter)! Just read the book! It's one of those rare books that you need to approach blind; just dive in and experience it. The less you know, the better. You will fall under its [...]
By: [email protected],
on 10/26/2014
It would not have surprised me if this had won this year’s Man Booker Prize. My heart was supporting Richard Flanagan’s magnificent The Narrow Road To The Deep North but I had a feeling this was going to get the nod. In the end it didn’t win but it would have been a deserving winner […]
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By: Jennie,
on 2/27/2014
Rosemary doesn’t talk much. She creeps people out. Her mother is a shadow of who she used to be, she doesn’t deal directly with her father. Her brother is wanted by the FBI. Her sister is gone.
Starting her 5th year in college, she tells us her story, slightly out of order.
Eventually, we get to the crux-- her sister Fern, the missing one, was a chimpanzee. They were raised together as sisters, part of a grand experiment, and then when Rosemary was 5, Fern was sent away to a farm and they never saw her or really spoke of her again.
Rosemary had a hard time in school, being a monkey girl, because being raised with a chimp made her have many chimp-like behaviors. She’s falls into the uncanny valley. She’s human, but something about her is… off.
The plot question is, why did Fern have to leave? But the main question of the book is, what are the ramifications of Fern being part of the family in the first place, and how the family (and the public) reacts to her leaving. And how Fern reacts to being taken away.
One thing they struggle with is that no one understood or acknowledged the family’s grief. They didn’t lose a pet, they lost a child. Rosemary lost her twin. The ethics of the study, of what happened, and why are explored through Rosemary’s lens. She was 5 when Fern left, her picture is incomplete.
It’s fascinating and moving as Rosemary tries to parse what happened and why and how that affected everything after, if it affected anything after.
I loved this book. I think Fowler really captured Rosemary as a college student and the whys and hows of how she looked at her own story.
But really, just, so much love. (Also it’s not a huge downer. It could have easily been a major sobfest. But it wasn’t. So glad Fowler didn’t go there.)
There's a reason this is an Outstanding Book for the College Bound!
Book Provided by... my local library
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By: Jason Boog,
on 10/31/2011
Novelist Nnedi Okorafor has won the World Fantasy Award for her novel, Who Fears Death.
Author Jeff VanderMeer described the book: “[The novel] is a powerful combination of science fiction, fantasy, African folklore, and stark realism. It tells the story of Onyesonwu, a woman of extraordinary powers in a post-apocalyptic West Africa, a world of perils and mysteries, of lost technologies and brutal wars. Onyesonwu’s name means “Who fears death?”, and her birth is the result of rape used as a weapon in battle; this legacy affects the woman she becomes, and the novel portrays her education as a sorceress and her quest to bring order and peace to her life and world.”
The announcement was made at the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego. We’ve included the other award winners below…
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
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