Wow!

It has been a while since a book kept me so absorbed and made me feel such intensity while reading it. Tlotlo Tsamaase has created a truly unique dystopian novel that will leave you questioning everything, but it is such a great read that you will be telling everyone you know to read this book!

Womb City is a dense and intense science fiction horror that tries to offer a perspective on systemic issues in our present societies. The novel is a violent narrative that is meant to disturb its reader and certainly achieves the intended effect, though certain structural flaws tend to minimise the effects.

In this science fiction turned horror/thriller set in futuristic Botswana, a person’s consciousness can “hop” into another body after death. Nelah, a successful architect, is stuck in a loveless marriage with her memories constantly surveilled by her husband and society. But after committing and covering up a crime, she must protect her family and unborn daughter from her victim’s vengeful ghost.

Tsamaase’s writing is incredibly crafted to unsettle the reader and force them to be wholly invested in the action scenes. The sharp turn that the book takes around the 30% mark was enough to keep me engaged throughout the whole story, the main character being compelling enough to make me root for her. The world is so unique and reminiscent of a Black Mirror episode, only a whole lot more messed up and terrifying.

My only wish was that there was more time spent on the characters and the plot. There was far too much time spent explaining the world in a way that felt like an information dump. The science, the ethics, and the folklore within the world were very interesting, but it felt like reading a textbook at times. When characters spoke to each other, it felt robotic and unnatural, as if they were talking at the reader rather than having a normal conversation. I was completely lost at times because of how much information was being thrown at me that I wasn’t truly given a reason to care about.

I really love Tsamaase's writing. This story was gripping and the characters were fascinating and multidimensional. I think this was a little more sci-fi than I'm used to so I struggled a little but that's 100% a personal preference. For folks who love this deeply dystopian kind of sci-fi, this book will blow you away!

I absolutely adored this book, reveling in its compelling narrative of Nelah and her accomplice, Janith Koshal, committing a murder and concealing the body. The depiction of a society governed by microchips, where individuals are ensnared in their own existence, was utterly captivating. The blend of horror and science fiction elements was masterfully done, and I particularly cherished the profound insights woven throughout the prose.

However…

The execution of the plot left much to be desired; it felt scattered and disjointed.

I read 50% of this novel. I loved the plot and the characters, I just didn’t love the writing style. I didn’t love that the majority of the first 40% was all internal monologue. I wish there had been more dialogue between characters. The plot was exciting though. I really wanted to learn more about the dead girl but I really struggled with the writing. Will definitely try anything else this author comes out with though.

"Womb City" by Tlotlo Tsamaase takes me on a journey through a dystopian world where oppression wears various masks, and the protagonist, Nelah, grapples with a life controlled by societal structures and personal struggles. As I delved into the narrative, I couldn't help but feel conflicted about the overall execution of the themes presented.

Nelah's life, seemingly perfect with wealth, fame, and impending motherhood, takes a dark turn as the consequences of a hit-and-run lead her to make morally compromising decisions. The vengeful ghost of her victim adds a supernatural twist, intertwining revenge and societal critique. However, I found the handling of these themes disjointed, as if they were thrown together without a cohesive thread.

I noticed the ambitious attempt to underline the fate of women in a patriarchal society, but I felt that the narrative was overloaded with personal struggles for the protagonist. The complexities of motherhood in a universe where bodies are hatched are introduced, adding another layer to the narrative. However, the story seemed to get lost in its attempt to encompass too many elements.

The pacing of the book came under scrutiny, as it read like a convoluted worldbuilding draft rather than a plot-driven novel. Lengthy paragraphs of information, akin to an encyclopedia of knowledge, are interspersed throughout the book, creating a sense of inconsistency and, at times, factual discrepancies. This approach made the novel feel more like a soap opera by the end.

The writing style, heavy with purple prose, received a mixed review. While it effectively set the tone by vividly describing Nelah's desperation and lack of agency over her body, I noticed the heavy-handedness of the exposition, diminishing the pleasure of discovery for the reader.

The connection with Botswana's folklore is mentioned briefly, with the tie to the ending feeling rushed. While not delving too deeply into this aspect, I hint at a need for more exploration.

In conclusion, I express curiosity about the author's short fiction, acknowledging previous prizes won, and suggest that a shorter format might lead to more evocative storytelling. Despite my critiques, I wish Tlotlo Tsamaase a long and successful career, hoping for improvement in a way that does justice to the author's incredible ideas.

I loved this book, but I didn't like this book! The actual story of Nelah and her side-piece, Janith Koshal, killing a person and bury the body was fantastic. The concept of living in a society where you are controlled via microchip and trapped in your "life" was amazing!! I loved the horror and sci-fi aspect of the book. I even loved the powerful gems written within the prose.

But...

The plot wasn't executed very well, it's all over the place. There are moments when the dialogue is more like a monologue. The characters come off as walking and talking paradoxes.There wasn't ever a moment where I could pick a character and root for them, because they'd switch up in the next chapter.

I'm really on the fence with this one! It would make a good movie/show with a little more work put into it. I'd be willing to give this author another spin!

This book was absolutely fascinating. I would consider it a slow burn with an amazing plot twist that is definitely worth the wait. I will say the world building in the beginning is a bit confusing. I will admit that because of that story lost me for a bit. There are rules in the book that as a reader, mentally, you want to keep track of and I found that overall hard to do. But the plot really makes up for it. This is an EXCELLENT piece of science fiction and I would recommend it to anyone. I can see this opening up great conversations in community.

The premise of "Womb City" sounds fascinating. And in the beginning I thought: wow, that is what "Vox" by Christina Dalcher tried to do but in much much better.

In the end I don't know if it was because I received and early uncorrected copy but I simply couldn't get through the book as much as I wanted to. Around 20 % I gave up.

Tlotlo Tsamaase shows in many parts a distinctive voice that has the potential to great stories. But this version of the book had up to the point I read about seven times the almost exact same explanation of how the body hopping works. But some information contradicted itself and I think that a good round of editing will make this book to a jewel.

I really hope that I will be able to read a polished version in the future because I love some of the themes and how our protagonist thinks about them.

"Pistons of skyscrapers cram into skyline as the highway curves into the city center , where the horizon is gray and mist-covered. Rain slashes against the windscreen. This is the life I’m living.

Gunshots.

Blood spatter."

This had a lot of potential and I enjoyed the first half a lot. But I found a lot of the story confusing and never got a full grasp of how the technology worked.

I did enjoy that this was set in Botswana. Unfortunately despite the great setting it just didn't work for me

I am late with this review so please bear with me if I touch on something that got fixed prior to publication.

First and foremost, I really enjoyed the writing style in this book. It’s very easy to miss when writing purple (ish?) prose, but even when it felt wobbly I just couldn’t get mad at it. It made sense, it was feverish at points and one of the reasons that kept me going.

Tsamaase built an intriguing world where consciousnesses are transferred from body to body and Botswana’s crime rate is decimated through overpolicing, extreme surveilance and microchipping predominantly women’s bodies. The misogyny is suffocating.

To me this failed to find the sweet spot between breakneck action and repetitive exposition. I don’t usually mind exposition but here it sometimes felt like I was reading a paragraph I’d already read but with a new detail that maybe tracked and maybe didn’t. I couldn’t tell. Action was also interrupted to deliver long explainers.

Dialogue wise, anything deeper than a simple exchange made all the characters sound the same, with similar (flowery) styles, cadence, metaphors, what have you.

There is however so much amazing potential here and I’m so excited to see what comes out of Tsamaase’s pen next.

The concepts in this book are really interesting but the execution was off. I wish the worldbuilding was more concise in the beginning and the story more focused. There were so many plates in the air that I didn't understand. Nelah is such a complex character, but in what I read she fell flat.

I requested this book because I enjoyed her story in Africa Risen "Peeling Time". I will definitely keep an eye out for more books by this author, though this one wasn't for me.

Christel Mutombo does an excellent job with the narration.

Womb City is a science-fiction turned psychological horror that unfolds in a futuristic dystopian Botswana. Here, the government offers people the opportunity to extend their lifespans by transferring consciousness from one body to another. This concept of "bodyhopping" is presented as a "solution" to the wealth and inequality issues faced by African Americans, aiming to address black tax and create generational wealth, all for a touch of immortality. However, there is more chaos to this concept than initially appears.

The story follows Nelah, a professionally successful and well-known architect with a longing to be pregnant, and an emotionally and psychologically abusive husband who is also a government enforcer—a cop. Nelah's consciousness is housed in a microchipped body that has been used multiple times prior, stripping her of all sense of independence. After enduring the pain and suffering of multiple miscarriages, she and her husband decide to grow their baby in an artificial womb, or "wombcubator." Despite this attempt to ease tension between the two, the strained relationship continues, leading Nelah to seek comfort elsewhere.

One night, Nelah witnesses a hit and run, forcing her to make a difficult decision based on her love for her unborn child. This sets off a cat-and-mouse chase as she tries to protect her family from a vengeful ghost haunting her. The narrative explores the consequences of the society's treatment of women and presents Nelah as a character who may not be likable due to her actions but elicits pity due to societal norms.

I didn’t seem to enjoy any of the characters as I was reading this story - including Nelah, but I definitely felt pain and sadness towards her. I’m wondering if this was made intentionally. She isn’t likable based on her actions but she is pitied due to society’s treatments towards women. There were a few times where I wondered what I would do if I was in her situation during the plot, and I can’t say I know.

Throughout the story, Tsamaase skillfully creates substance with the world-building, providing intricate details. While the story had a slow and confusing start, every little detail came back full circle like a puzzle piece to unravel the final masterpiece. The plot twists drove the story and when you think some small detail might not be necessary, you’re mistaken.

As a debut author, Tlotlo Tsamaase impresses with a remarkable writing style and attention to detail. The first half of the book serves as a foundation for the plot, while the second half flies by. One plot twist after another left my jaw dropping with a lot of *gasps* and omgs. As a new reader to sci-fi/dystopian storytelling, I wasn't sure what to expect, but I can comfortably say I'm glad I read this!

This book was very interesting and at the same time very terrible, what can you do when you cross an uncrossable bridge… that's what happened to our main character, in this dystopian world, people are under surveillance 24/7 even more if you’re a woman, since women are the the scum of society… this book started as a dystopian world and evolved to a world of mysticism and vengeful ghosts and there’s where I kind of lost my grounding, I love dystopian worlds and I also like horror, but I didn’t love the sum of these two genres in the same book. Let me explain further, for me it was a bit too much of everything at the same time and I got lost in the story, the prose is nice, and the idea of the story seemed really cherry picked for me, but there was too many things happening at the same time and to tell the truth what could go wrong for Nelah, would go wrong…

that being said, it was an ok book, even though I wasn't the intend reader for this book I know many will love it, and I will still recommend this book for people who want ghost stories, revenge and even murder with a touch of dystopian, and if you want to know why I said all of these, grab a copy and read for yourself.

Thank you Netgalley and Kensington Books, Erewhon Books, for the free ARC and this is my honest opinion.

I struggled to rate this book as there were some genuine moments I enjoyed, but ultimately I settled at
around 2.5, but I will round up.

TLDR: A fantastic concept with powerful themes that struggled to communicate those themes
powerfully.

I sit up as my microchip vibrates, sending quivers down my spine. It’s my daily reminder for my morning
assessment. I already feel so incarcerated in my own bed that the government-imposed reminder makes
me grit my teeth.

I have to say I really wanted to like this book. It mixes genres in a way that I usually really enjoy, and
through the messages in the book, there were some moments of genuine reflection and thought-
provoking ideas I wasn’t expecting. I just couldn’t stay with any of those as the elements of message,
plot, theme, etc. all felt so discordant that it became a challenge to read.

Highly recommend those who might be sensitive to specific content take a look at the warnings if that is
a concern. I thoughts the authors visceral style was incredibly powerful but I can also see it being too
much for some.

The prose and world building were what kept me going through the early part of the book. I read
probably 15% of the book in a night and debated how much I wanted to continue reading. In doing so I
realized I had a vivid image of the world and was enjoying various elements of the writing style and I am
not normally one for purple-ish prose. I found myself wanting to know more about the disconnection of
consciousness and body and how that would impact the narrative moving forward.

The challenge was that this often came in large information dumps that would occur in the middle of
action or conversation. It made the pacing feel very stop start and that became challenging as it would
occur repeatedly. I also found that rather than talking about the messages or themes in a way that
regularly invoked me as a reader to think about them, they were told to me directly by the characters.
This only served to take me out of the story, especially in the early information dumps.

After about the 30% of the book, it started to pick up. While I enjoyed elements of the plot and action, I
became more detached from the characters and their choices. At times they would say “here’s what we
can do to help” and then turn and do the opposite giving time for another plot point. The mix of sci-fi,
religion and horror worked for me in parts, but it felt like the classic horror trope where the characters
prolong their own pain by not listening to themselves. By the end the “reveals” felt underwhelming as I
really struggled to stay invested in what those reveals actually meant in the characters or world.

Ultimately for me this seemed to struggle with editing and refining. So much potential in both message
and style but missed the mark for me.

Also, I probably should have put this higher but let’s give some love to Colin Verdi for the cover art.
Absolutely loved it the first time I saw it! So well done.

Thank you to Kensington Books and Net Galley for the opportunity to receive this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’m somewhere between a 3 and a 3.5.

I was really excited for this book because it sounded so unique and I will say that the themes of living under the oppression of patriarchy, bodily autonomy, ambiguity about motherhood, greed of capitalism and more were very interesting to contemplate - but don’t make a coherent story make. There is a lot of infodumping throughout the book, which took me out of the story. And the execution of the plot is also pretty confusing and while I understood some of what was happening, I can’t say the same for the rest. I also didn’t see the whole mashing up of cyberpunk dystopia with folklore coming, but it made for a very interesting conclusion.

Overall, I think this book was much more ambitious than what ultimately ended up on paper, which is why it just couldn’t keep my interest all through. The audiobook was narrated well but I didn’t listen to it completely because I just rushed through the second half of the book to get it over with.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars--

Womb City is so many things that it feels impossible to describe. If I had to give it a genre, I'd say Africanfuturist feminist dystopian horror. It's one of those you-just-have-to-read-it books. But be warned, you might have nightmares after. Set in a future world where body hopping is the norm, there is a waiting list for consciousnesses to be places into available bodies. In this dystopian Botswana, a misogynist surveillance state monitors (mostly women's) bodies whose prior tenants committed crimes through an invasive brain implant. One such woman, Nelah, feels imprisoned by her body, her implant, and her law enforcement husband.

But that's just the beginning. This story and this world grow and warp and transform. As I was reading this book, I kept having moments of "Oh now I see what's going on," and every time I was wrong. This book is truly never what it seems to be. If you're not sure about it, JUST KEEP READING. I thought it was going to be another feminist dystopia. Then a forbidden love affair. Then a murder drama. Then a horror story. Then a vast state and/or corporate conspiracy. Then a fantasy about a vengeful deity. It was all of those things. It was none of those things. The characters are complex and imperfect, constrained by oppressive systems of power that only an ancient goddess can change. Yup, that's where the Africanjujuism comes in. And Tsamaase does an incredibly inventive job weaving African cosmologies into a futuristic technological system of state control. There's no way you're guessing this ending.

Many thanks to Kensington Books, Erewhon Books, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Womb City started out as a slow burn but it really picked up in some really unexpected ways.

The novel is set in Botswana in a dystopian surveillance state, where crime is essentially eradicated and the wealthy are functionally immortal through consciousness transfer to a new body. Tlotlo Tsamaase spends a fair amount of time world building, which sets the stage for the moral complexity at the heart of the story. The story follows Nelah, who is living her second lifespan in less than ideal circumstances as she struggles with fertility and the unfair consequences of living in a "criminal body". Because one of the previous inhabitants of her body committed an unnamed crime, she's been flagged to be predisposed to criminality and therefore under microchip surveillance and routine tests to prove whether or not she might be considering criminal activity. On top of having a misogynistic cop husband who gets to use this mind monitoring to maintain a power dynamic over her, she is under constant stress about her finances and status as a law abiding citizen when they decide to use an artificial womb service to have a baby.

As the story begins to pick up pace from a dystopian marriage drama into more of a haunting thriller Nelah uncovers the darker underbelly of her society as well as herself. While it often feels that Nelah is self sabotaging and only making her situation worse, it also feels like that is the point Tsamaase is trying to make. Would Nelah have made these choices if she wasn't acting out of desperation in a society where just the thought of crime could have her evicted from her body and terminate her rights to her unborn daughter?

Although the pacing was a bit slow, Womb City was a compelling story that highlights the ways those in power manipulate the status quo to maintain power.

ARC received through NetGalley for review

"Womb City" offers a compelling glimpse into a dark and deadly dystopian future in Botswana. While the intricate world-building may pose a challenge for some readers, the novel packs a punch with its intense climax, featuring a significant information dump that might leave readers like myself, with literary whiplash. Nelah, the female lead, may not resonate with everyone, occasionally causing frustration for me. I did not agree with every decision she made. Despite personal reservations, I recognize the book's potential appeal and I plan to recommend it to my sister, anticipating she might find enjoyment in its unique narrative.

I received an e-book copy of this book for review via NetGalley and Kensington Books, all opinions are my own.