I was in a reading slump through April and May so combining my monthly wrapups.

The Burning God by R. F. Kuang

I finally plucked up the nerve to read the final part of The Poppy War trilogy, and returned to this brilliant fantasy inspired by modern Chinese history. I normally avoid grimdark fantasy and this trilogy really captures the horror of war, colonialism and dehumanisation, but the protagonist, Rin is utterly fascinating, she’s ruthless, determined, pragmatic and ambitious, and I just had to know how it ended. The ending itself was foreshadowed from the first book and repeatedly through the final book, and yet I still wasn’t prepared for it, and it hit me like a sledgehammer. The Poppy War trilogy is easily one of the darkest but gripping and original fantasy trilogies I’ve ever read.

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Message is a really compelling book about the duty of writers and journalists to inspire, inform and educate readers about white supremacy, colonialism and systems of oppression in the age of censorship, misinformation and propaganda. The book has attracted some criticism and controversy as Ta-Nehisi Coates uses his visits to Israel and occupied Palestine to demonstrate how a victim can become an oppressor, and described what he saw as apartheid and colonialism. He could arguably have used the conflicts in Sudan or the exploitation of people and resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo as examples, but he uses Israel and Palestine instead because he accepted the narrative that Israel was given to the Jewish people as reparations for the Holocaust without ever questioning it or using critical thinking, and he uses The Message to repudiate his own article ‘The Case for Reparations’ originally published in the Atlantic. I thoroughly enjoyed The Message, but I wanted more.

Boy Everywhere by A. M. Dasu

This is a middlegrade story that follows 13 year old Sami who is forced to flee his home in Damascus when the Syrian civil war reached the city. Boy Everywhere describes his family’s desperate journey from Syria to England as they attempt to find safety and start a new life. This was an extremely tense and sad story in places, but also one that reminds the reader to be kind to others because it’s so easy to judge people without knowing what they’ve been through. Boy Everywhere doesn’t shy away from describing the bombings and horrors the family fled, the risks of the journey from crossing the mediterranean sea to being squashed into a van with other refugees and asylum seekers, the dehumanisation and bureaucracy at the detention centre, and the prejudice that migrants face when they finally reach the UK. This was such a poignant, gripping and hopeful story.

How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue

Set in a fictional African village, this tells the story of the villagers whose land, water and children are poisoned by a nearby oil refinery. Frustrated by the broken promises of clean up and financial compensation from the American oil company and the indifference of their corrupt government and violent dictator, the story follows what happens when the villagers finally start fighting back. This story covers some heavy topics such as slavery, colonialism and environmental destruction, but also balanced by family, community, education and survival.

Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

Parable of the Sower was one of my favourite reads last year, and I didn’t want to wait too long before picking up the sequel to find out how the Earth Seed duology ends. Set in the very near future where climate breakdown has caused societal collapse across America, this book feels eerily prescient in places as Octavia E. Butler predicts the rise of militant Christian evangelicals and a President who promises to “Make America Great Again”. Meanwhile the protagonist, Lauren Olamina, is still trying to build her own religion ‘Earth Seed’ and secure the future of humanity by colonising space, but this is very much dystopian fiction rather than science fiction. This story does have some pretty dark moments and I would definitely check the content warnings before reading, but I really appreciated themes of education, community and resilience that also run through this story.