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    Akata Witch
    Akata Witch
    Akata Witch
    Audiobook8 hours

    Akata Witch

    Written by Nnedi Okorafor

    Narrated by Yetide Badaki

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Twelve-year-old Sunny lives in Nigeria, but she was born American. Her features are African, but she has albinism. She's a terrific athlete, but can't go out into the sun to play soccer. There seems to be no place where she fits in. And then she discovers something amazing-she is a "free agent" with latent mystical power. Soon she's part of a quartet of students, studying the visible and invisible, learning to change reality. But will it be enough to help them when they are asked to catch a career criminal well-versed in powerful juju?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMar 30, 2018
    ISBN9781977372420
    Akata Witch
    Author

    Nnedi Okorafor

    NNEDI OKORAFOR, born to Igbo Nigerian parents in Cincinnati, Ohio on April 8, 1974, is an author of fantasy and science fiction for both adults and younger readers. Her Tor.com novella Binti won the 2015 Hugo and Nebula Awards; her children's book Long Juju Man won the 2007-08 Macmillan Writer's Prize for Africa; and her adult novel Who Fears Death was a Tiptree Honor Book. She is an associate professor of creative writing and literature at the University at Buffalo.

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    Reviews for Akata Witch

    4/5

    737 ratings75 reviews

    What did you think?

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    • 5/5
      This book was awesome. I binged it in one sitting while doing housework. It was a fantasy book about magic but it had unique cultural elements to it. The narrator was excellent.

      3 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This book is amazing! And the narration is takes it over the top. Love a book I can listen too with my kids and introduce them to something new

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Loved the insights into a different world. Very intriguing narrative!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      ❤️❤️❤️ I enjoyed every moment of this book!!! Well worth the read

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      The narration and story were spell-binding! The characters and visuals all came to life in this amazing story of friendship and overcoming huge obstacles. Will treasure this for life.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Loved learning about this new system of magic… I’m a Nnedi Okorafor fan through and through
    • 5/5
      What a fun, imaginative book! I was genuinely delighted the entire time I was reading it. I'm going to the library tomorrow to get the next book.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed reading this. There wasn't much action but it was a fun read and I loved the world building.
    • 5/5
      Our family LOVES THIS SERIES AND WE LOOK FORWARD TO THE NEXT ONE AFTER AKATA WARRIOR!!! I think they have read the book like 100 times and we listen to the audiobook often! Off to Akata Warrior!!! Thank you Nnedi Okorafor for this Africanfuturism in real time!!
    • 5/5
      Yes yes yes. I was literally on the edge of my seat as they faced Ekwensu. A big fan of the author's writing style. Simple to digest with a lot of Nigerian culture infused.
    • 5/5
      African Harry Potter! The author is true to her Ibo culture and respectful of tribal interaction within West Africa. The key for me was the use of Nsibidi and Magickal operations involving this ancient West African language. "ONLY IF NIGERIA WAS READY TO GIVE THE WORLD THEIR VERSION OF A MAGICKAL MOVIE!"
    • 3/5
      Okay, don't get me wrong. I can see what people see in this series. I don't know what I thought I'd expect considering I generally don't like fantasy, and I definitely don't like Harry Potter. It's just not my jam. In many ways, Akata Witch is very HP, just in Nigeria. In other ways, it's so steeped in African mythology, it's a true breath of fresh air from the normally very European folklore that fantasy so often draws from. It's definitely a book I'd recommend.
    • 5/5
      Excellent narrator, I loved listening to this. Story was way more engaging than I expected. I don't think I have ever finish an audio book so quickly before.
    • 5/5
      Incredible story which is about magic but also teaches about values and cultures.
    • 5/5
      This is my 3rd time reading this book and it gets better every time! And listening to it was almost a new experience entirely. Love the narrator!
    • 5/5
      This was a great book, i read this an the second.
    • 5/5
      Another great book by this author. I Loved it!
    • 3/5
      Mostly pretty good story about an albino Nigerian, born in the US, but returned to Africa, who is bullied for her looks and feels out of place, and then discovers her latent magic ability with some other kids like her. Very much like Harry Potter in an African setting with different legends and creatures, etc. I wanted to like it more than I did, but things resolved a little too quickly. Still it's not a bad read.
    • 5/5
      Fantastic, fresh urban fantasy from a Nigerian perspective. I got so wrapped up in reading it that I missed my bus stop.
    • 4/5
      I heard the author interviewed on NPR and she was so charming, I thought I'd try the book. I'm glad I did. Sunny and her friends are leopard people with different magical abilities. Sunny is actually a free agent, which means she is a descendent of a leopard person, her maternal grandmother. Very inventive.
    • 5/5
      Okorafor's Akata Witch is everything one could want in a YA Fantasy--or Fantasy in general, in many ways. The fantastic detail and world-building Okorafor offers make for a story that feels grounded in our reality while at the same time being incredibly magical. Add to that characters who are unique and believable, with flaws of their own that only add to the reality, and you have an absolutely engrossing read. My one tiny complaint here was the pacing at the end of the book felt a little bit rushed, right around the climax, but then again, maybe it's just that I couldn't bring myself to tear my eyes away from the book and was speeding through....Truly, I'm sorry it took me so long to discover this series, but at the same time, I'm excited the follow-up books are already published so that I won't have to wait :) I can't wait to dive into the follow-up!
    • 4/5
      3.5 rounded up. Great world creation, choppy, simplistic language. Of all the recent YA I’ve read, this felt the closest to actual YA level book. I’m still interested in the next book, but I wish it’d gotten one more edit pre-publication
    • 4/5
      3.5 stars.

      This was fun! It's been a while since I read middle grade and it was great to get to this finally after hearing so many good things. I actually thought this was written for a slightly older audience going in and I probably would have had different expectations but I did still have a good time.

      The world Okorafor sets up is really compelling. This book is set in Nigeria and there is a parallel magical society that Sunny discovers she's a part of. I really enjoyed this set up and learning about this magical society alongside Sunny. The other characters she meets are also very fun. Reading this, it kind of felt like a series of little vignettes where Sunny and her friends go on little adventures together and I think that's a really good set up for this type of book.

      I do wish that the big final battle felt a little bit more dramatic. It was over very quickly and I would have liked if there was more of a connection to the antagonist throughout the book rather than just close to the end. It was still an interesting lead up but I did like some of the other smaller plot points that happened earlier more than the final event.

      This was a really fun book and I would consider reading book two. I also want to read Binti by this author so I will definitely reading more from her in the future.
    • 3/5
      Born in the United States but living in Nigeria, twelve year old Sunny feels even more like an outsider because on top of being albino, she just discovered she has magic in her blood and spirit and is known as a Leopard. Sunny's quickly thrown into the world of Leopard people to practice and learn because her and her group of friends now must save the world.

      There were many things I enjoyed about this novel - the world building that was uniquely crafted had me sitting right along side the characters. I loved that learning and knowledge is what was valued in the world of Leopards over money.

      However, this book didn't 100% work for me.

      The book is labeled at "YA" and maybe it's right they do so since there are some more graphic scenes and subject manner, but the voice and vibe of the book is very juvenile. It threw me off the book a bit before I realized.

      I could never remember how old the children were - I could remember they were young but the way they acted were much older in my opinion. Sure, you can chop it up to being mature, but that wasn't really it either. The way they talked and interacted with each other made me keep putting them closer to fourteen or fifteen. It also doesn't help how hands off the adults seem to be in the teaching of the children. Just throw them into danger and if they come out alive, that's great - if they don't, the world will still turn.

      The pacing of the book threw me off a bit too. We'd have really intense scenes that felt like they were almost glossed over and I got lost in. Others, I'd be excited to read about Sunny's lessons and they would just be summarized as what happen within the last week or month. The ending and the final fight seemed to just run up and smack me in the face and then was gone. It felt like it was missing so much.

      Overall I did enjoy the book though and I will be picking up the second in the series to continue the story.
    • 3/5
      Sunny Nwazue has always felt like a bit of an outsider. She's albino, which has not only led to her being viewed differently, but it also stops her from being able to do certain things like spending an entire afternoon out in the sun. But Sunny soon learns that she's actually special in another way--she is a "free agent" and possesses the capacity for magic. This opens up a whole new world of opportunity for her and introduces her to some new friends. But is also exposes her to some danger as well. There's someone out there taking children, a someone who just so happens to be able to use magic as well. And Sunny and her friends find themselves needing to help put a stop to it before more people go missing...

      There's an interesting world created and presented within this story, though I sometimes found myself a little confused with some of the various connections between the characters. There is probably some room for a little more world building, but it's still an enjoyable and interesting read. A definite possibility for fans of fantasy adventure stories.

      [Disclaimer: This review is based on an advance review copy provided by the publisher via the First to Read program.]
    • 3/5
      audiobook (audiobook sync summer 2019 free download)

      diverse children's fiction/middle grade. If Harry Potter were a Nigerian-American albino girl, and Hogwarts was tucked away somewhere in Nigeria... I liked it OK but was not blown away; characters are a mite 2-D and the story development is sometimes tiresome (concepts are explained a LOT, sometimes more than once as Sunny is brought up to speed on the magic/Leopard People world--she may not have a photographic memory like 2 of the other kids do, but she's not stupid either). Still, I think kids might really enjoy this book, especially the alternative heroine.

      update: I downloaded a free e-audiobook through audiosync's
      annual summer initiative and enjoyed the audio version quite a bit more--I missed some of the details, but I loved the narration (the reader has what I assume is an authentic Nigerian accent). It does seem to parallel HP in many ways but I think kids would totally dig this spin and I would recommend this series.
    • 3/5
      Okay, don't get me wrong. I can see what people see in this series. I don't know what I thought I'd expect considering I generally don't like fantasy, and I definitely don't like Harry Potter. It's just not my jam. In many ways, Akata Witch is very HP, just in Nigeria. In other ways, it's so steeped in African mythology, it's a true breath of fresh air from the normally very European folklore that fantasy so often draws from. It's definitely a book I'd recommend.
    • 3/5
      I struggled a bit with this one. I was reading it for a book club and had a deadline so I pushed through but found the pacing at times a bit slow. It took a while to reveal a clear goal for the characters. Perhaps it suffered for having followed a book that was incredibly goal-oriented the entire time (even those goals changed along the way). I'm not sure how much of this was fantasy or based on actual "juju" but that aspect was interesting, if a bit foreign. And it did have a satisfying conclusion (although it also left the door open for a sequel) so overall it was enjoyable.
    • 5/5
      This book was so great. I don't have anything that smart to say about it. Nnedi Okorafor creates an incredible world, and I want to spend more time in it. I'm excited for the upcoming sequel(s).
    • 4/5
      This contemporary Afrofuturism and Afrofantasy is set in present day Nigeria. 12 year old albino Sunny Nwazue was born in the United States to Nigerian parents. Now living again in Nigeria with her family, Sunny feels like an outsider at school and at home. Her classmates view her as a “witch or ghost” because of her albinism, and incidents of bullying and prejudice are sprinkled throughout the story. Sunny discovers that she and her closest friends are “Leopard People” -- Nigerian witches, and their quest begins to take down a serial killer.
      Okorafor’s ability to share Nigerian folklore, magic, and elements of Nigerian life will appeal to teens and adults. For those interested in continuing Sunny’s story the sequel Akata Warrior can be queued up for their TBR pile.

      Note: Yetide Badaki's narration of the audio book version is superb!