so I finally read Black Leopard, Red Wolf
by Marlon James. literally the most
intimidating book on my TBR and I loved
it! and I am so excited to talk about
it in this review. so just like all the
other book reviews that I've done lately
I'm gonna vaguely talk about the plot
and then my likes and my dislikes. there
might be some mild spoilers depending on
how you view spoilers, but this was
actually on my anticipated list two
years ago. and--- but the real reason why I
picked it up is because it i blurbed as
the African Game of Thrones. so in this
story we follow our main character who
is Tracker he is actually in prison. and
he's kind of retelling his events of how
things went down to an Inquisitor. so at
the very beginning of the novel we kind
of know how things end.
we know that the kid that he has been
hired to find is dead. obviously, let's
start off with my likes and the thing
that I loved so much about Black Leopard,
Red Wolf is it's ancient Africa
influence. so in the story we get things
like tribal rituals. like, rites of
passage and also like tribal customs.
there are also very vivid and lush
descriptions of African dress. and then
of course my most favorite thing is that
this has so much African mythology and
folklore. it's just like infused and it's
so submersive and compelling. like our
main character travels to the underworld
where he is like battling these ---what
they call night demons and roof
walkers. and they can be summoned by
cutting yourself and throwing blood onto
the ceiling. and then we also get like
tree fairies and then we also have
vampers [vampires lol]. I mean and this is just like
me just dabbling in this mythology.
just to show you. I'm just giving you a
little taste of what is in this story. we
also have tons of like magical worlds.
like, we have this dark enchanted
murderous--- excuse me,
murderous forest. we also have a plethora
of very diverse
unique cities and towns. one of the
cities is--- excuse me, is this city that is
built into these gigantic trees.
basically anything that is introduced in
this story it's just so freakin cool and
I wanted to know even more it kind of
reminded me of Avatar The Last Airbender in this sense that like this story
involves a lot of traveling. so we are
exposed to a lot of different cultures
and towns and customs and everything is
just introduced to you so naturally. and
I absolutely loved it! and I kind of just
mentioned my next like which is the fact
that this is a traveling story which is
one of my favorite like plot devices in
fantasy. it just really gives us a way to
explore the world and I love that. I just
I'm not gonna get tired of it. I just
love it because we also have like the
building of the group. we have a few
minor characters that we really get to
know and enjoy. and then I also love the
setup of Tracker telling his story to an
Inquisitor. so obviously it's a story
within a story. and then sometimes he's
telling another story. so it's like story
inception a story within a story within
a story! and I also loved that in
beginning of the story we know how
things end. things really start to
unravel from there and you have so many
questions because you're like why is
tracker in prison? how did he get there?
who is this boy? why are they trying to
find him? I just found the narrative
extremely compelling. and there were so
many different layers to unravel. and I
think because of the structure of the
narrative that if you enjoyed The Name
of the Wind that you might enjoy this as
well. and if you've been following my
channel for a while and you actually
watch my videos you would have seen my
one star predictions video which Black
Leopard Red Wolf was on that. I expected
to hate it or just like---not enjoy
the experience of reading this book, but
it completely like subverted my
expectations. you know, I went into this
story expecting just like every single
page to be graphic violence. you knowm
especially towards women. just a lot of
misogyny.
it has those things in it. don't get me
wrong. it has those things, but there are
quite a few female minor characters that
we are introduced to and I thought that
they even though they were minor
characters. they were extremely fleshed
out. they felt like actual people, they
were powerful, and they challenged the
main character on his bullshit and his
obvious dislike of basically all women.
so our main character does get challenged
on his misogynistic views. I mean does he
change or come to terms with that? not
really. but I thought---- but I went to this
story thinking it was basically misogyny
fest. there was a little bit of romance
in the story which I was not expecting
and I loved it.
our main character is gay and he has a
romance with another man and I loved it.
it was great! and then the last 10% of
this novel like had me on my toes. I had
to like force myself to stop reading it
because I wanted to savor it. and it was
such f**king gut punch and I cannot wait to get
to that second book. like I if you had
told me like literally a month ago that
I would be praising and raving about how
much I loved Black Leopard Red Wolf and
how I want to get my grubby little
fingers on the second one. I'd tell you
straight up that youre a f**king liar. so now on to
my dislikes. I'm gonna be straight-up
honest with y'all... this book is vulgar as
hell! there are just so many moments that
I'm just like why is this even being
talked about? why are--- why!? if you watched
my video where I compare it to Game of
Thrones I mentioned these two moments so
if you don't wanna hear them again I
highly like just go to this part right
here. I'm gonna give you two examples to
describe how vulgar that this story is.
so we have a minor character that is a
giant. like he literally a giant. and he's
kind of telling his story and one of the
parts of the story is that he gets
jerked off by a chick and he ejaculate,
so forcefully that he shoots her four
feet across the room. Ohmygod... actually I'm not
going to tell you the other one because
I feel like that does a really good job
of talking about how vulgar this is. you
don't need
anything else, but I'll just tell you
there's just moments like that where
you're like why is even a thing? I could have
gone the rest of my life without reading
that sentence. and as I mentioned I went
into this story thinking that I was
going to hate it.
and that's not, you know, I didn't conjure
those ideas. that's because I watched and
then read very mixed reviews on this
book. and I'll tell you the first 70
pages of this were rough for me. they
were very challenging. the way that it is
written, you know, it's one of those
moments where you're thrown into this
world and you feel disoriented. there's
like a sensory overload and it has like
this psychedelic, like hallucinogenic
feel to it. I was being told these
stories and, you know, it's the beginnings
of this story and everything that I was
reading just felt like I was trying to
grab on to the words and they were just
slipping through my fingertips. it's like
the best way that I could describe it.
but after the 70 cent[page] mark for me things
really hit the ground running. we really
start to follow a one consistent and
linear story. and after that I wasn't
looking back I was balls-deep in the
story. and I loved it I can't say that
enough I love the story! oh and the next
dislike of course is what I've already
mentioned before. it's that there's a lot
of misogyny in this story so no surprise
this is set in like a patriarchal very
male-dominated world, but I will say that
the next book follows the females point
of view. she's one of the minor
characters in this story. I'm so-- I'm
super excited to see how that pans out.
so yeah I'm really excited to have the a
female perspective on this story that I
really enjoyed. and then we have some
other dislikes and also trigger warnings.
there's a lot of fat phobia in this. also
some moments of trypophobia. and
there's just like a lot of things in
that happen in this novel that are
violent. and that--- just are things like
weird things. that just make your skin
crawl.so just be aware of that if you
decide to pick up this novel. just---
this isnt
for the light-hearted. tread very carefully,
but ultimately if you're okay with the
trigger warnings and like violence and
things like---- not okay with it but you
know you can read it in your novel and
not be triggered by it--- I highly
recommend black leopard red wolf. yeah!
I'm gonna stop gushing at this point. if
you're okay with mild to moderate
spoilers I highly recommend you checking
out the video where I compare it to Game
of Thrones.
um spoiler alert and actually kind of got a
pretty high score, but I will say that I
feel like I read this at exactly the
right moment in my life. because if I had
read this right after it was released
with my expectations super high I don't
think that I would have enjoyed it as
much after reading and and hearing lots
of mixed reviews on it. that really
lowered the bar. and obviously I went
into this thinking that I was going to
hate it and I think that really just set
me up to love it .so thank you everyone
who read this and didn't enjoy it. you're
doing the Lord's work and I appreciate
you! that is it for this video. if you've
read black leopard red wolf let me know
what you thought about it down below or
maybe let me know if your interest is
now kind of piqued, but until next time byyyyee!
