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October Daye / Inheritance - Essay Series Part Five: Long Series and How to Read Them

Hello Patrons and general audience members! Welcome to another Books That Burn essay by Robin. Thank you to Case Aiken, who receives a monthly Patron shoutout. [Full Audio Available Here] This is the fifth and final entry in a five-part essay series discussing two long-running book series by queer authors: October Daye by Seanan McGuire, and Inheritance by A.K. Faulkner. I chose these series because I love them both, they were intended from the start to be long series, neither of them are finished yet, and the authors have different structural approaches to developing each series across so many volumes. Purely coincidentally, they are both long-running contemporary fantasy series mainly set in California in or near the 2010's, with major characters named Quentin, and whose fast-healing protagonists have a tendency to quasi-adopt a gaggle of magical teenagers. After a brief moment in the 1990's, October Daye begins in earnest in 2009 and has reached 2015 as of the eighteenth boo...

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor (Akata Witch, #1)

Akata Witch is tiring but good, a book which conveys the miasma of fear, doubt, stress, anger which are part of living with systemic racism. It is about coming of age, gaining confidence, but never forgetting that life is dangerous and everyone will die someday.

This was an incredibly draining book to read. It was great, I definitely recommend it, but the first half to two-thirds of the book conveys how emotionally drained and constantly stymied the main character (Sunny) feels. Even the word "Akata" from the cover is an insult wielded against Sunny and others. Definitely check out this one, but make sure you have the emotional space to be okay if the themes in this book hit you hard.

*CW for racism, sexism, police violence, child death.

Sunny is a Black person and an albino, a person born in America whose parents are from Nigeria but now lives in Nigeria, a person with magic (Leopard Person) in a family of magic-less people (Lambs), a girl who plays a sport which is culturally the domain of boys, almost every facet of her identity viewed by others as being abnormal, having a split, being some "other". She is constantly told she's stupid, she has the next level of knowledge dangled in front of her, but it's rarely enough to please those around her. Her home live is turbulent, filled with verbal abuse from her father and complicity from her mother. She becomes more sure of herself, more competent, but never invincible, never untouchable. Even fairly late in the plot there are still major events which shake her confidence, make her feel lesser than everyone else. The magical realism of the book complicates this feel of "otherness" and isolation, of the shock of suddenly being around people like you but still not quite fitting in. 

It would be simple but not sufficient to say that one point of the book is that being a Black person is difficult and dangerous, that those who survive never are free from danger, and that it's frustrating and sad that the word "survive" feels appropriate to describe "living". There are specific discussions of violence against Black people in the USA, specifically of murder by police simply for being Black. It's part of the framing as well as being woven into conversations throughout the book, for the very simple reason that it's a truth that can't be disentangled from some of the characters' lives (specifically Sasha, newly arrived from the USA) without feeling like they have been silenced. It was difficult and draining to read because it conveyed the feelings of fear, emotional turmoil, uncertainty, mistrust, anger, and exhaustion that are part of the character's lives, even when things are mostly going well.

Make room to read this one, if you can.


An albino black woman with an insect on her forehead

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