Writers of Color Book Club discussion

Here is where we will discuss Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor. You can place your thoughts below, but if you feel that the information you are posting has a spoiler in it, please be sure to use the (view spoiler)[... (hide spoiler)] tab to hide it. This will make sure that no one's reading experience is spoiled.

I am so excited to be reading this book with everyone. Happy October! Let the reading begin.

Afriendlylibrarian wrote: "I am so excited to be reading this book with everyone. Happy October! Let the reading begin."

I am hoping to start reading Lagoon over the weekend. I just finished reading The Book of Phoenix and also want to read Binti very soon.

Beverly wrote: "I am hoping to start reading Lagoon over the weekend. I just finished reading The Book of Phoenix and also want to read Binti very soon."

Binti sounds super good! I just added it to my TBR. I have Who Fears Death in my eBook TBR as well since I got it as a kobo deal. I'm glad you'll be doing us for October! Welcome!

I forgot to mention earlier that if you purchase Lagoon as an ebook on Amazon, you can also get the audio from Audible as a discounted price of about $3.45. This way, if any of you enjoy audiobooks, you can have the audio version as a part of your collection! You can purchase it using the previous link I posted as well.

Happy Reading!

I am about 25% into this book and I am having fun reading it. It has me chuckling at times.

Beverly wrote: "I am about 25% into this book and I am having fun reading it. It has me chuckling at times."

I'm glad you're enjoying it. It definitely is a good introduction to Okorafor's repertoire.

How did everyone feel about this read? I had quite mixed feelings. On the one hand, it was refreshing to have the alien invasion story done in Nigeria, but on the other I felt like the pacing was off and a lot of the plot threads just went nowhere.

I'm still quite near the beginning of Lagoon and finding it quite hard to get in to... I'm not sure why. I was reading on ebook at first but couldn't get into the flow, so I got hold of the Audible version and started again.

I love the narrator's voices - the style of English is beautiful! But I've not found a thread in the story to catch hold of yet. I'll persevere because it's early days yet, but I wondered if anyone else felt the same way and whether the book gains momentum later?

I felt the same way at the beginning, Annerlee. At one point I thought I'd accidentally skipped some pages.

I have finished Lagoon and I enjoyed it.

I was not confused at the beginning and maybe it is because before reading Lagoon I have recently finished two other books by the author so I learned how she likes to set up the storyline in the beginning chapters and that the book would circle back to scenes and concepts at the beginning.

There were a couple of things that I liked about the book:
- I liked how the author sets the scenes and scenarios that makes the reader feel part of the action and several times I wondered what I would do if I was part of this action.
- I liked how the issues that affect everyday people in Lagos was presented - the homophobia, the political corruption, the gender issues and religious zealotry.
- I liked the use of humor that was often presented in the gritty situations and definitely chuckled as the various groups not only tried to control the messages and had a plan to take advantage of the situation for their own benefits. Definitely illustrated how social media can spread/control the information that is out there.

Louise wrote: "I felt the same way at the beginning, Annerlee. At one point I thought I'd accidentally skipped some pages."

Beverly wrote: "I have finished Lagoon and I enjoyed it.

I was not confused at the beginning and maybe it is because before reading Lagoon I have recently finished two other books by the author so I learned how s..."

So I'm still working my way through Lagoon, but I have to say I don't think it's my cup of tea. I do enjoy that she's included a diverse cast with LGBTQ characters and shown a consistent picture of Lagos that's simile to other Nigerian authors' portrayal of Lagos and/or Nigeria, but there's something that feels choppy about the writing. It almost feels like I've been put in a blender with the characters of the story and can't really get my footing in the narrative. I've been listening to the audible narration and I think it's contributed to my dislike of the book since the voice narrators do odd interpretations of Adeoyla and Aju and some other characters. Hopefully, it gets better toward the end for me. As of now, it's looking like a 3 star book.

Adira wrote: "Louise wrote: "I felt the same way at the beginning, Annerlee. At one point I thought I'd accidentally skipped some pages."

Beverly wrote: "I have finished Lagoon and I enjoyed it.

I was not conf..."

I think I'm getting into 'the groove' of Lagoona bit more and am determined to finish the book, if only because the English and culture feel so different, I want to gain some insight.. and I want to know what happens!

I've chuckled out loud a few times, which is a good sign : )

I'm finding some of the descriptions irritating - things like 'she was wearing a short skirt and a sensible blouse'.
What's all that about? That's all the info I get! It wrenches me away from the narrative, simply because I can't conjure up any suitable images. For me 'a sensible blouse' is either something my grandmother would wear (grandma = white, soft wrinkles, fluffy hair) or something for a strict 'school ma'am' (glasses, topknot, deadpan, bad temper). I find my mind wandering for pages, because my previous images are shattered and my current ones ridiculous...

I know... it's a problem with me, my pre-conceptions and probably my culture... which is why I'm determined to get past these sort of hiccups and finish the book! After all, I joined the group to broaden my horizons! And I want t know where the story finishes up.

I don't think I'll finish in October though : /

Annerlee wrote: I know... it's a problem with me, my pre-conceptions and probably my culture... which is why I'm determined to get past these sort of hiccups and finish the book! After all, I joined the group to broaden my horizons! And I want t know where the story finishes up.
..."

Ooh, your last message really hit home for me. I'm white British, so when I was reading this I realised after a while that I kept visualising white characters even when it's perfectly obvious that the characters are people of colour. I kept having to constantly remind myself of the fact and it really highlighted my white bias. I definitely want to move away from that, and even though I only rated this book 2 stars, it reminded me of why I wanted to read more WOC in the first place.

Annerlee wrote: "Adira wrote: "Louise wrote: "I felt the same way at the beginning, Annerlee. At one point I thought I'd accidentally skipped some pages."

Beverly wrote: "I have finished Lagoon and I enjoyed it.

..."

Louise wrote: "Annerlee wrote: I know... it's a problem with me, my pre-conceptions and probably my culture... which is why I'm determined to get past these sort of hiccups and finish the book! After all, I joine..."

It's really interesting that you two say this because I remember when we read Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin, I initially spent about 75% of the book picturing the protagonist as an African-American male since the author himself was Black. It wasn't until I checked out the audiobook and saw the cover that I came to the discussion board and asked around that I realized my mistake. This makes me think that it's not just a specific race that does this, but as a reader, we sort of bring our experiences to the table whenever we read and it helps shape our perception of what a character looks like and how we interpret what an author says. Hence, Annerlee you having these preset ideas of what a "sensible blouse" may look like or me and Louise visualizing characters that look like our respective races.

Adira wrote: "Annerlee wrote: "Adira wrote: "Louise wrote: "I felt the same way at the beginning, Annerlee. At one point I thought I'd accidentally skipped some pages."

Beverly wrote: "I have finished Lagoon an..."

So true - we bring who we are and what our experiences have been to each book we read. Which is why we need to be aware of the "one story" as reading is one way for us to experience outside of our norm.

This reminds me of a statement made by President Obama in an interview discussion with author Marilynne Robinson. President Obama was actually interviewing Ms Robinson.

Barack Obama has said that novels taught him “the most important” things he has learned about being a citizen.

Interviewing Marilynne Robinson in the second instalment of a two-part interview for the New York Review of Books (also available as audio), the American president asked the author if she was worried about people not reading novels anymore, as they are “overwhelmed by flashier ways to pass the time”. For himself, Obama said, “when I think about how I understand my role as citizen, setting aside being president, and the most important set of understandings that I bring to that position of citizen, the most important stuff I’ve learned I think I’ve learned from novels”.

“It has to do with empathy,” Obama told Robinson in a conversation which is published in the 19 November issue of the New York Review of Books. “It has to do with being comfortable with the notion that the world is complicated and full of greys, but there’s still truth there to be found, and that you have to strive for that and work for that. And the notion that it’s possible to connect with some[one] else even though they’re very different from you.”

Here is the link to the full article and other related information.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015...

Hello, just start reading this. I am intrigued by this story being set somewhere I am completely unfamiliar with.

I looked up the city on Google Maps to understand the physical layout of Lagos. I like the little bits of Nigerian culture that comes through.

Annerlee mentioned the audiobook version. I listen to a lot of audiobooks, but not this one. I would love to hear the 'pidgin english' spoken. I think I would have understood it easier than my interpretation/pronunciation of the written words. (Found the glossary after reading more than 80% of the book.)

I'm almost done and will come back to read the rest of the comments.

Mochajunkie wrote: "Hello, just start reading this. I am intrigued by this story being set somewhere I am completely unfamiliar with.

I looked up the city on Google Maps to understand the physical layout of the Lago..."

Haha! I didn't even know there was a glossary! I'm listening to the audiobook now and the pidgin English is easier for me to read than hear to be honest so I find myself starting and stopping the audio with this book.

Also, I like how you gave the tip of looking up the map. I got confused about where each event happened so this became a slow read for me.

This book is definitely a different type of read for me since I don't read a lot of sic-fi, but I'm reserving any real judgement til the end.

I listened to the audio last year, partly bc. I was a Londoner I didn't have too much trouble with the 'pidgin', grew up around a lot of Jamacians and some west Africans.
I very much liked the story and would suggest looking up a bit of recent Nigerian history. There was a president who went to Saudi for medical treatment and for awhile no one knew if he was alive and if the vice-president should take over.

Been on a bit of a SF novela binge latly read Octavia E Butler's Bloodchild, which is/was available FREE as an ebook and listened to another Nnedi Okorafor story Binti, a short-ish story, perhaps a bit more 'traditional SF-ish' with brilliant narration by Robin Miles.
Without the 'pidgin' it's probably easier to understand?
HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!!

Alistair wrote: "I listened to the audio last year, partly bc. I was a Londoner I didn't have too much trouble with the 'pidgin', grew up around a lot of Jamacians and some west Africans.
I very much liked the stor..."

Thank you for the recommendations!