Review: Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi

Title: Riot Baby
Author: Tochi Onyebuchi
Genre: Novella/Adult/Magical Realism
Publisher: Tor
Publication Date: January 21st, 2020

Edition: Kindle Edition, 176 pages

Purchase: Amazon US | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | BAM

Synopsis:

   Ella has a Thing. She sees a classmate grow up to become a caring nurse. A neighbor's son murdered in a drive-by shooting. Things that haven't happened yet. Kev, born while Los Angeles burned around them, wants to protect his sister from a power that could destroy her. But when Kev is incarcerated, Ella must decide what it means to watch her brother suffer while holding the ability to wreck cities in her hands.

   Rooted in the hope that can live in anger, Riot Baby is as much an intimate family story as a global dystopian narrative. It burns fearlessly toward revolution and has quietly devastating things to say about love, fury, and the black American experience.

   Ella and Kev are both shockingly human and immeasurably powerful. Their childhoods are defined and destroyed by racism. Their futures might alter the world.

   I think I might have been too stupid for this book, or maybe just out of touch with what it was about on a deeper level. I wish it was longer and took more time to explain things. This book has some minor time jumps, and I don't know if it would have helped me fully understand what was going on had the time jumps not been there. While this is a novella, it feels more like a collection of short stories, than a linear novella.

   Everything about this book was good and makes this a book I could recommend to just about anybody. The writing, the characters, the writing. I just couldn't wrap my head around what the plot was exactly. I'm not sure I could explain this to somebody in my own words. I understood the underlying message, but everything else just went over my head.

   The magic isn't explained in a way that made sense to me. I might have to check out the audiobook, I listened to a sample, from the library and hopefully, that will help me understand everything better. 

   Would I recommend this book, yes.  I plan on reading more by this author. I like his writing, and the other books I've seen of his look really interesting.

I do wish it was a bit longer and we got to see the siblings for longer during those periods of their lives.