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A review by bratatouille
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The writing in this is stunning and incredibly dynamic. The premise is original and beautifully executed. My pity and empathy for the mortal form did not outweigh the violence I wanted in cahoots with the gods within. It took my feeble brain a few chapters to understand all the names and the overall concept of the book, but once it gets rolling it’s really something to behold. This is the first and only book that deals with self-harm and thoughts of suicide that felt like it wasn’t the main purpose of the book. Even though, literally, the gods inside her want her to die. There’s so much representation in this book. You could easily call her condition DID and there’s all this stuff about gender, sex, and physical form. It was cool as hell to read about the conditions outside of a Western lens and instead in a spiritual one. Big fan, wild read, doubtful I’ll ever come across anything like this again.