This book had been on my TBR for months, so when it came up as an option for review in one of my university classes, I jumped at the opportunity to check it off while being productive at the same time. I am largely a mood reader, and I was not at all prepared for this book. The same thing happened with Babel: The Necessity of Violence by R.F. Kuang, in which I was excited to read it anyway, but wasn't mentally prepared for it, so it took me months to finish despite becoming one of my favourite books, so much so that I'm only actually finishing the book after having written my paper. Since I wrote a whole paper on this story, my review here will be more in-depth and comprehensive, but I'll condense everything I need to discuss. Slight spoilers ahead. To start, I want to talk about the use of Anansesem, an oral tradition of West African and Caribbean storytelling, to tell this tale. A couple of years ago, I took a cultural theatre class as a part of my minor degree and was in a group with a Theatre PhD student who had a focus on West African theatre. It was here where I first heard of and learnt about Anansesem, and my group did a rendition of Medea in the style. Upon opening Midnight Robber, I immediately drew the comparison and recognized the storytelling as such and was very excited. Since before the Transatlantic Slave Trade, African traditions such as oral storytelling have been considered primitive, and by using Anansesem, Hopkins replaces and decentralizes European scribal traditions with African traditions (Osei, 307), reclaiming the sphere of storytelling. While it did take me a little while to get used to the language and understand the world of the story, this element completely elevated the story as a whole, and I wholeheartedly believe it would not have been as impactful if it hadn't been used. There are other things I could address here, but the most prevalent and difficult to grasp is the subjectivity of the Black girl. In the book, we are wholly immersed in Tan-Tan's realities and experiences, all influenced by her positionality as not only a beautiful young Black girl learning and coming into her abilities and personality, but also in the faults of those around her, primarily her father and stepmother. “For Black girls in a postmodern moment, the construction of self and identity is mediated by various forces, including but not limited to relationships with biological parents or chosen parental figures; issues dealing with racism, sexism, or other forms of discrimination; and those typical of aging development (self-esteem, befriending others, self-expression, sexuality, etc.)... Afrofuturist narratives provide an avenue through which we can understand and theorize the positionality of Black girls and how to imagine a future beyond the debilitating experiences that currently shape Black girls’ postmodern subjectivity” (Halliday, 29-30). Starting at a very young age, Tan-Tan experiences regular sexual and physical abuse at the hands of her father and verbal and physical abuse at the hands of her step-mother, which all directly impact Tan-Tan's view of herself. This instigates the creation of a “spatial difference between herself and the person he assaults; she is no longer that victimized girl… invariably, she separates the rape victim, ‘the bad Tan-Tan,’ from who she is, ‘the Robber Queen’” (Halliday, 41). “Daddy was two daddies. She felt her own self split into two to try to understand, to accommodate them both” (Hopkinson, 140). Starting in Toussaint, Tan-Tan believes Antonio’s treatment is a direct result of her own behaviour, placing all the blame for these situations on herself, which impacts her ability to not only cope but also heal. After everything that happens to Tan-Tan throughout the story, the end was very therapeutic. I don't know how I would have felt if it hadn't ended like the way it did, because while the story is very real and I appreciate that about it, I prefer a happy ending. Midnight Robber weaves an intricate tale of adolescence to adulthood, trauma, and reclamation of history and self in a haunting world of self-discovery and acceptance, and it is, unfortunately, impossible to properly address all the themes present in this book with the depth it deserves here. Halliday, Aria S. “Trauma and the Formation of Radical Black Girl Subjectivity in Nalo Hopkinson’s Midnight Ribber,” Women, Gender and Families of Color, vol. 11, no. 1, 2023, pp. 27-48, https://doi.org/10.5406/23260947.11.1.02 Osei, Elizabeth Abena. “Re-Purposing African Elements in Nalo Hopkinson’s Midnight Robber.” Journal of the African Literature Association, vol. 17, no. 2, 24 Feb. 2023, pp. 298-314, https://doi.org/10.1080/21674736.2023.2181512

3.5 ⭐ I am thankful that I received an e-arc copy of this book through NetGalley for my honest opinion. Review contains minor spoilers. In barely 200 pages, I experienced so many emotions that I'm finding it difficult to process. Mostly, this book isn't very deep or thought-provoking and is largely just hedonistic fun. Unfortunately for me, I am unable to separate myself from putting getting emotionally invested as if I were the person in the situation, so watching a husband get entranced by another and leave his wife really did a number on me, and I ended up sending my boyfriend a tearful voice note at 1:30 am. He found this highly amusing. In the process of reading this book, I was very quickly reminded of why I could personally never be in an open/poly relationship, despite my love for polyamorous romance books. Right off the bat, I could tell this book was quite unique just based on the writing style. It took me a while to get used to, and a part of me feels like I never did. There would often be moments I would need to re-read a section, thinking I missed a line, only to find I didn't, leaving me starved for more context. There were a lot of things I would have loved more clarification on, and I feel like the writing style excused itself from providing such information to the reader, as it was subject to the whims of Rebakah's short attention span and selfish desires. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and I actually found myself enjoying it most of the time, but there were things I wish had been communicated in more depth: - How do the vampires feed? It is quite apparent that they largely feed on emotion. Whether it's an emotion of their choosing or something each individual is naturally inclined towards is unknown, but I wonder if they also feed on blood. - What is Rebekah and Hugh's relationship like, really? They largely seemed not to enjoy each other's presence or personalities, both being bored or even annoyed at the other's interests and conversation topics (feelings, especially expressed by Rebekah and Hugh, were a seemingly one-dimensional character that didn't get very fleshed out). Despite my personal reaction to him leaving her, I am under no illusion that she was impacted by that for the same reasons I was. Rebekah craves attention and has an almost possessive hold on Hugh because she knows she would always have his. Until the moment she didn't, which in turn rocked her view of herself and self-confidence, which was the much more devastating blow. It's hard to explain, but the tone of the book and the way Rebekah communicated her thoughts and feelings reminded me of the film Poor Things starring Emma Stone. She is an incredibly unreliable narrator, exacerbated in how she's childish in the way a child only cares about their wants and desires, possessive in the way a child doesn't like to share their favourite toys, and greedy in the way a child craves the attention of the people in any given room. There was also a sense of unease present throughout the entire book as we, alongside Rebekah, are watching her husband very quickly fall under the thrall of an unknown being who seemingly has it out for Rebekah. It made for a very unsettling but intriguing experience that made it difficult to put the book down before I knew how it ended, which is great for such a short book. I actually quite liked the book and it is a story I would recommend to people as something that doesn't take a long time to read and is interesting to talk about.

I am struggling to think of where to start my review. I found this book incredibly intriguing, especially since I honestly had no expectations or ideas of what it could be going in. I see "mermaid" and I jump and hope for the best. I am so happy that this book pretty much exceeded all I wanted from it. The story, told through the journal of the main character, David Baptiste, touched on class, race, colonialism, womanhood, female sexuality, oppression, and greed. I read this story as an audiobook, and I am so happy I made that decision because it greatly enhanced my experience and immersion in the story. It took me a little while to get used to the dialect, as I'm unfamiliar with it, but hearing the character tell his story, essentially reading his own journal directly, made the whole story that much more impactful. It felt like I was listening to an account of real events, making it seem like something that could have possibly happened. This story's true tragedy doesn't lie in the fact that David and Aycayia don't end up together despite their love for one another, but it's in the fact that the jealousy and greed of the women who cursed her continued to take from her. The saddest part was watching everything she finally got to experience being taken from her again, dooming her to live by herself for hundreds of years to come. One of my favourite aspects of the book, being written in such a way, is how 'heavy-handed' these themes are. Because we are experiencing the story through the lens of someone's memories, there is no need to sugar-coat or try to expertly weave them into something that needs to be deeply examined to understand. I've come to understand that many people take such 'heavy-handedness' as a sign that the book isn't well-written because it wasn't subtle about its themes and messages, but I think the opposite. Being able to address these topics in such an abrupt way, in a way that makes sense for the story without making it seem lazy, is something I see as being very difficult, and I appreciate the skill it takes to accomplish. Reading the reviews for this book was an interesting experience. I was so confused about why people were calling the writing juvenile because I didn't get that from the story at all. Then I realized that pretty much all of these reviews and comments were coming from 🖐🏻 readers who have probably never engaged with another way of speaking/writing than their own, so imma leave it.

I loved the exploration of history, not only in the preservation of histories that are actively silenced and hidden, but also the character's passion for sharing that history with others. I don't usually read books with big mystery elements, and it turns out all I was missing was romance because I had been hooked from the beginning. The only reason I was struggling to figure out my rating was a result of my preferences and is truly no reflection on the quality of the story. I always forget why I struggle with second chance romances until I read another and it hits me again. I get too emotionally invested in the stories I read, imagining myself in the position of the character. It becomes all too easy for me to truly start feeling those emotions and when the characters aren't reflecting those emotions or actions, I get frustrated. It was largely the beginning of the book that I struggled with the most. When they come together for the first time in three years, I need some sort of true tension, I need to see her feelings of loss, hurt, and betrayal because I am feeling the loss, hurt, and betrayal. It felt like almost immediately they were falling right back into each other with little to no reflection on what had happened between them, and for me to feel it with them, I would have had to have some sort of proper conversation between them (or even a more verbal acknowledgment). It's difficult because logically I understand this is because they never stopped loving each other and all they truly wanted from the beginning was to be together, so it does make sense, but I was too busy feeling betrayed for her to let it go. Despite my early reservations I quickly got over it as I got more invested in the story and the couple as they came together again. I loved learning about the history of the Underground Railroad in such a way. I think it is so easy to forget that learning about these things can be done in fun ways that don't always mean academia, and for those who do love that aspect of learning the author included discussion questions at the end of the book, which were incredibly intriguing to go through and reflect on after finishing the story. I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to read and review this book, which I received a copy of through NetGalley.