Irrespective of my friendship with one of the authors, it is a little hard to review a Young Adult book as someone who doesn't enjoy the genre, but I think it speaks for the book that it was a pleasure to read for me, it doesn't follow the same path conventional YA does and managed to keep me interested through an "adult" approach to the themes it treats.
Is it possible for a YA novel to not undermine the intelligence of its readers, represent them with respect and not be condescending? Is it possible for a YA novel to have characters not feel like naive caricatures, but actual people with valid worries and struggles?
In the case of the urban fantasy Nubia: The Awakening, yes. Yes, it is. The world building, plot and social commentaries in this debut of actor Omar Epps and fantasy writer Clarence A. Haynes managed to not only speak to me, but, it is safe to say, kept me reading compulsively.
We're in the future, but not very far, and in a universe not very different from ours. Climate change is getting serious, nations have started building high-tech dams in order to protect themselves from the ever growing sea-level and violent storms. Nubia, the legendary island before the Western African coast, has fallen victim to one of these storms and has sunken into the sea, prompting the surviving population to seek refuge elsewhere. For the three New Yorker teenagers Zuberi, Uzochi and Lencho, their parents' home land is but a very distant memory, almost a sort of myth. Things become even more mythical and almost wondrous when they discover they all have certain supernatural powers, an almost forgotten trait, a gift from their ancestral home.
In a time when both nature and human works against them, a time in which society is divided into the ones "up high" and the ones living in slums, private militia and security forces roam the streets and they feel the imminent threat of destruction upon themselves, these three young people not only try to cope with this hostile world, they also need to accept and digest their respective abilities and the responsibilities they entail. Some of them do better at this, some of them not so, and it is too easy for them to fall into the wrong hands.
It is such a nice notion that Zuberi has her stuff so much together, is so focused, determined but also vulnerable enough to be confused over boy issues, making her a relatable but also kick-ass heroine right from the start. With Uzochi and Lencho there's some work ahead, and I can't wait to explore their arcs in the second book, which I hope will be published soon.
Adopting a highly political, complex backdrop, Nubia: The Awakening is very much on a mission - from its target audience to the subject matter, to parallels to real life movements, it aims at empowering the scorned and the ill-treated as well as draw attention to global warming, environmental displacement and cultural assimilation. And reaches its goal with flying colors. On a last note, I very much appreciated the audiobook production and the narrators’ work.
It ends with kind of a cliffhanger, so I'm really curious about the continuation!
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