Book Review: A YA Stumbles

 Abeni's Song, by P. Djèlí Clark (Tor)

I requested an ARC of this book from NetGalley because I loved the author’s previous work. RING SHOUT and THE WAR OF THE DJINN engaged my imagination with compelling characters and gripping, freshly inventive stories. Alas, in my reading experience ABENI’S SONG fell far on all counts. It’s a YA fantasy set in a mythical African village and steeped in African folklore and customs. The first time I tried to read it, it was so tedious and slow-paced and its characters so stilted and bland that it regularly put me to sleep. Then I decided to give it another chance. I made it halfway through before I realized I was using one excuse after another to not read any further. All my previous problems were still there, plus more. I gave up halfway, at a point when I should have been eager to return to the story. Here’s a roundup of what didn’t work for me:

1.        First and foremost, the kids lack agency and competence. At twelve, most children—especially those in traditional societies—already have a wide range of skills. They contribute to their communities at adult or near-adult levels. Here, they have few responsibilities, they consistently behave in ways that are disrespectful and irresponsible, and they are utterly helpless in the face of a threat to their village. One of the joys of contemporary YA novels for both young and adult readers is the resourcefulness of the young characters.

2.       Abeni and some of her friends are annoying to the point that I lost all sympathy for them. Abeni, the viewpoint character, seems completely unaware, for example, of her mother’s fighting skill, something her mother would have practiced regularly to maintain. She’s a self-centered brat, and no one except the witch calls her on it.

3.       Despite bursts of action, the pacing is excruciatingly slow. Material is repeated, adding to the already excessive length for a YA novel. There’s little sense of dramatic shape, and the tension dissipates in the long gaps between action scenes. I perked up during the attack on the village and its aftermath, only to have all the dramatic momentum evaporate.

4.       The evil characters are two-dimensional, as if they woke up in the morning and went, “Evil! Evil! Rah-rah-rah!” This is in stark contrast to the nuanced complexity of the antagonists in Clark’s adult novels.

I am left wondering if this was either a trunk (early, unsuccessful) novel or an attempt at YA by someone who never reads it. The prose, annoyingly peppered with exclamation marks and juvenile (in the worst sense) worldview, is what one might expect if unfamiliar with the genre. All that said, I liked Clark’s adult novels enough to give future work a try and hope there will be more of them.