Lagoon

[psocoptera]

When I finally sorted/spreadsheetized my to-read list, Nnedi Okorafor's Lagoon was on it multiple times, suggesting that it kept coming up on contexts where I was picking up recs. Finally read it! Like Binti, I liked that it didn't feel quite like anything else I'd ever read - reading things that are actually different turns out to be a great way to avoid that feeling of reading the same plots over and over, who knew. I felt less spoonfed, not being quite sure what to make of parts of the story... like I didn't feel like I had the cultural context to be able to tell when Okorafor was being satirical about Lagos vs just straight-up storytelling? And she did something that I had also found striking in Shawl's Everfair where fantastical elements outside of the main sfnal premise are introduced relatively late in the story and taken at face value like of course there could be animal possession or demonic roads in this universe why would you be surprised. Anyways, I didn't love it, but I found it very interesting, and I still hope to read some of Okorafor's fantasy novels to compare if/when I ever get to that part of my reading list.

Comments

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

I found Lagoon super frustrating, since there were parts of it that were so good, fresh and meaty, and then other parts seemed to come out of left field, and I had a hard time dealing with those parts, like some of the ones you mentioned. the way some characters were treated as one-shot throw aways bothered me too, especially when they were built up to be important. I find it hard to distinguish which of my frustrations were due to cultural expectations being broken and which were bad writing.