Remote Control (Book Review)

Title: Remote Control Author: Nnedi Okorafor

Format: Hard Cover

On Goodreads, this book is classified as Science Fiction, Fantasy, and African. But I want to make the point that the author identifies this book as AfricanFuturism. This is an important distinction. I've only read a small handful of Science Fiction books; the first was actually a few years ago when I read Hank Green's "An Absolutely Remarkable Thing." That was the first book I had read in about a decade, and it's the book that woke me up to fiction. I haven't stopped reading since. I'm a mood reader, though, and I enjoy several genres of literature. I picked up "Remote Control" for a Popular and Contemporary fiction class. I did not expect to fall in love with the complexities of the protagonist. I did not expect to fall in love with a country I've never been to and a religion I have little understanding of. I did not expect that my feminism would be screaming at the pages (Okay, I somewhat expected that last part).

On Goodreads, I wrote, "It's written beautifully, with vivid details and imagery throughout. Several sections read like poetry. The story is tragic and uplifting. You see the light inside of Sankofa's soul, the light that is Fatima, and it's impossible to not love her. I also want to add that this novella lends itself well to Ethnic Studies and feminist theory for literary critics. In fact, it was hard to read without the tenants of theory coming into my mind." However, to go deeper than that, this is a story about grief. It's about a young girl trying to understand who she is, what she is, and where her place is in the world. “After three days at home, she had to walk. As she walked, she wept; her mother, father, and brother were dead, and now she understood this deeply” (Okorafor 57).

I think about death and grief often, and I tend to gravitate to books that discuss it in depth. After all, death and grief are the one constant in this world, the one thing we can always count on. I love that each time death is mentioned in writing, it gives us a glimpse of just one way to cope with the inevitable. It makes us feel less alone. It offers us connection during a time when connection is so hard. There's a lot to love about this novella, In fact, I did a 5-page analysis for the class I mentioned. The reason that I wanted to review the book here, is because so many people focus on the fact that this is a story about a girl with a light inside of her that kills people. People are failing to see the greater picture, they're failing to see society, humanity, and the way the past impacts the future. I think between the lines, that's what this novel is about.