First of all, the premise, title, cover art and narrator are all amazing.

I enjoyed the first 20% of this and was excited to see where it would go but somewhere along the way I wasn't so excited anymore. There was so much going on and so many plot points and explanations that I just couldn't keep up and had no idea what was going on by the ending.

Thanks to Netgalley I was able to have this book before release, and I'm pleased to say I really loved it, like I love all the books by Tlotlo Tsamaase.
I loved Nelah, the protagonist, so much, and the themes are definitely the ones that interested me the most.
The author uses sci-fi to talk about problems we face in our everyday world, and she does that with such a dreamlike writing style that makes me so fascinated, that I had to devour the entire book in a day.
The worldbuilding kind of reminded me of 1984 a little bit, and the political subplot is the most intriguing I've read in years.
I'm gonna think about this book and its messages for a long time, I think, because it's one of those books that go under your skin and change the way you think of things, and also the way you are.
I would totally recommend this yo everyone I know!

beautiful writing, intricate world building. very captivating story premise. would highly recommend for scifi fans.

This book grabbed my attention immediately. It's such a beautiful idea for a story; a dystopian future, where people live longer by body swapping. The author writes very poetically and has a great imagination.

That being said, I believe that this story went a bit off course. I had trouble being inside the main character's mind for so long while he wavered about. She was a strong character and may have been better viewed from 3rd person so that when you got annoyed you were able to step away from her. Jan, her love interest in the book was hard for me to believe. Tlotlo wrote a dark patriarchal story filled with male dominance, and yet his character bent at every whim of the FMC.

I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did, and I held through to the finish line so I could see where the author was going. I believe that the story would have been more powerful, had it been shorter, more to the point, and focused. The author has a lot of potential, and I will watch to see where her writing evolves after this journey.

Thank you Netgalley and Erewhon Books for the opportunity to read this ARC on kindle as well as audio.

DNF @ 45%

The premise is so promising, and Tsamaase is clearly a talented writer, but the plot is just so clunky.

Not a spoiler since it’s in the description, but Nelah literally kills someone and then immediately points out that she’ll be punished for the crime “because she’s a woman.” I’m not sure if we’re supposed to view her as a complicated character or a hypocrite, but it didn’t work for me.

The world building is also just Nelah… explaining how the world works, in essay form.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

A free-fall into a super intense dystopian future full of incredibly invasive government surveillance, body hopping, and almost no crime! Right? Nelah’s consciousness was uploaded to a body with a past of crime and a microchip that records her every move through her eyes and ears, oh yeah, and her cop husband looks thru the footage weekly to ensure her “purity.” This is a truly lyrical and macabre look at being a disabled woman who lacks any real privacy in the eyes of the world and her government. After an accident, shit really hits the fan for Nelah and Jan as they spiral to come up with solutions to both the accident and subsequent haunting from the victim. The power of growth and change and feminine rage made this a super powerful read to me! And the narrator was amazing! Captured so much emotion and intensity thru the whole book. Definitely gained a top spot in my list of sci-fi faves!

This review is for the audiobook version of Tlotlo Tsamaase’s “Womb City, narrated by the fantastic Christel Mutumbo. Thank you to NetGalley for providing the audiobook.

Womb City is a brilliant audiobook that forces the listener to delve into the genuine horror of inequality, domestic abuse, and the battle for fundamental human rights and dignity set in the distant future.

The narration by Christel Mutumbo is superb in every way possible. I highly recommend this genre-bending tale accompanied by stellar audio narration. 5 out of 5 stars.

Unfortunately, this may have arrived to me at just the wrong time or something, or perhaps not.

I sadly found the main character to be incredibly unlikable. So even with her living in and through trauma, there isn’t necessarily enough for me to grab onto to care.

With that being said, it left the story feeling like it was really missing something, and in that sense, it read as sadly boring.

Womb City is a cyber-punk story of a future society where women’s bodies are owned and controlled by the government. It shows how women are often pitted against each other by society. It's a smart, body-hopping ghost story about motherhood, memory, and a woman’s right to her own body.

I really enjoyed this audiobook. Something tells me I may not have been fully engaged if I had read it though. It’s a bit long and not at all linear, but the audiobook conveyed the deep emotional impact of the story quite well.

As a debut sci-fi fantasy novel, it’s top notch.

*Thanks to @NetGalley and @rbmedia for the arc opportunity.

I ended up DNFing this one. The start was very slow and I wasn't interested in the characters. I thought the world building was super interesting and I wish there had been more of that to start, but it felt more technical than fun. I think my biggest sticking point that was it seemed to lack a narrative drive. The concept of your husband looking through your memories each day is engaging, but the FMC was able to hide things very easily and had a whole secret life, which was confusing. I could have pushed through, but ultimately there wasn't enough to keep me engaged.

2.5★

Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase is a dystopian, sci-fi, horror novel with women fighting for their rights and great LGBTQ+ and BIPOC representation.
There is secret government control, AI, body horror, and a lot of macabre thing which sound amazing (please check trigger warning before reading)...
HOWEVER, the plot was so complex it was quite confusing and at times incoherent. There were too many things thrown in that could have been left out and would have made the story more concrete.
The beginning was slow and a little struggling to get through. If it wasn't for it as an audiobook, I'm not quite I would have finished. But once I got about halfway through it was a roller coaster ride. A confusing, fast, but still fun roller coaster ride.
Womb city lacked the horror aspect until about the last half and it went from 0 to 100 real fast. I honestly wish there was more horror because it was so good.
This book is dark, and I highly enjoyed that part.
The ending was a "holy shit" moment, good or bad I'm not sure. But entertaining nevertheless.
The narrator did a great job as well.
Thank you Netgalley and RB Media for this audiobook for an honest review.

Maybe 4.5 stars. I was leaning toward 5 stars through the majority of the book, but I think ultimately it's just a little to scattered to get that full 5-star rating. I really did like this and I appreciate its ambitiousness. It went harder on the body horror than I was expecting, but honestly I feel that it helped bolster the message of the novel. Its tropes were well utilized. It threw some twists and turns that felt shocking but well earned. I will definitely be interested to read more books from Tsamaase in the future.

I rushed to get an ARC as soon as I read the premise but this is nothing like what I could've expected. It's not truly sci-fi but more like an attempt at literary fiction with a sci-fantasy background. It tries to be deep with it's exploration of society, norms, inequality etc but everything is so on the nose. It felt less like an analysis of human nature and more like the obvious being shoved down my throat. I don't recommend this to sci-fi readers, but if you'd like to dip your toes into the unfairness of womanhood (in Africa). The atrocities of mankind are more palatable in a fictional setting.

Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase: I’m still not sure how I feel about the text but I’m here for the concept (if that makes any sense).

The content, ideas, and underlying messages are really cool (it gives a little Black Mirror) but if you’re not into wordy, metaphorical texts, this might be a difficult one to get through. Keep in mind, as a reader I don’t love world building and metaphors. I am a tell don’t show kind of reader, the opposite of most book lovers.

2.5/5

I almost DNFed this book and I am still quite torn on how I feel about it. The second half was definitely better than the first, but there are issues that stem from that weaker beginning and some that were present throughout that made finishing the story a mixed-feelings kind of affair.

I was mostly drawn to the story by the sci-fi and horror tags. The comparison to "The Handmaid's Tale" is quite accurate topically but unfortunately "Womb City" needs polish. Most of the horror elements are present in the second part of the book - and pretty good once you get to them. But if you’re a reader looking specifically for this kind of content, you may get discouraged before you reach it.

One of the prevalent issues is that a little too much is explained in an encyclopaedic way, as if I was reading the author's notes for the world-building for where the story takes place rather than the story itself. As an avid sci-fi reader, I am excited about new ideas about possible dystopian futures but I want to also be immersed in them, not read a detached essay on them - and at moments it felt as such. Then, when we reached the plot twists and some of the most compelling reveals, I feel like not enough was said. I don’t mind vagueness of the horrors we encounter, but here, with so many things explained in detail earlier, it felt unsatisfactory to get less on the juiciest parts of the lore.

I feel like this book would benefit from "kill your darlings" approach. There are too many ideas - the criticism of misogyny, racism, police brutality, immigration issues, rich privilege, and more. All that sprinkled with the pondering on the true meaning of identity and consciousness, what makes us who we are. I am someone who's eager to breach such topics, otherwise I wouldn't be interested in this title in the first place. However, here it seems more like a dumping ground for ideas rather than a polished concept. There's so much mentioned, but too rarely anything offering insightful commentary stemming from it.

My biggest issue, I think, is that the author made me dislike all of the main cast in the first part of the novel, to a point where I stopped caring what happens to them. I don’t mind unlikable characters in general, don’t get me wrong, but here I know I should have been emphasising with some of these characters later on when the plot twists were revealed about the true nature of this world’s wrongdoings. But, unfortunately, at that point I couldn’t find any positive feelings towards the main cast. While I could relate to Nelah’s struggles as a woman, I couldn’t find it in myself to cheer her on after being in her head.

I can't say anything bad about the production of the audiobook, I enjoyed the narrator. I really do appreciate the choice of a POC narrator as I felt that the Botswanian names were correctly pronounced.

Overall, I'm disappointed since I really looked forward to a black, female, dystopian sci-fi story to sweep me off my feet but “Womb City” wasn't it for me. I think it could be more engaging with more brutal editing and the overall focus shifted onto the post-accident plot.

Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase is definitely a very unique story. This is a sci-fi/horror/dystopian novel. Very interesting and intriguing premise. I liked this book well enough.
From the very beginning the story was very slow and I couldn't get into it. But from the middle the pace became very fast, and even faster at the end. I feel like I didn't have enough time to enjoy it.
Also, if someone is looking for a horror story, it only starts in the middle and then goes downhill.
The author brought up so many topics in his story that I think it would have been better if at least a few of them had been selected to continue to focus on them.
The main character Nelah was somehow inconsistent, her behavior was confusing. Perhaps this probably was the intention of the author. Theres so very little about world building. There are many events which happen so fast that there is no time to experience emotions.
Lots of trigger warnings to be aware of!
3.5 star rounded up.
Thanks to NetGalley for providing the audio book.

This is my first sci-fi book and it was so fun to read! Womb city takes place in a futuristic world where your consciousness can be placed in another body. People can live multiple lifespans but of course women, people of color, the poor, and non-binary folx still face inequality. With themes of motherhood, gender-based violence, and generational trauma, we follow Nelah through a world wind 24-48 hours filled with betrayal, ghosts, and secrets revealed. There’s plenty of plot twists, and at times it was hard to keep up with everything going on with the story but I enjoyed it. The narrator for the audiobook was really engaging.

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.

An Adult Fiction Fantasy, sci-fi, Horror, thriller with a splash of cyberpunk in a very dystopian world. (there is a lot to unpack in this book.) Set in a futuristic Botswana Africa, where the population is micro chipped and virtually immortal without any crime. Pov Nela is a women of color from a wealthy family, successful career in a loveless marriage with husband Elifaci (Eli). Eli is assistant to the commissioner Police. He he trying for a promotion while both he and wife Nela are trying to conceive a child. After some difficult losses, they decide to go the artificial AI route (The Wombcubator) Nela is stuck in a world where Women are controlled and monitored. She is also blamed by her family and spouse for her infertility thought to be punishment from ancestors. Seen as defective (for the infertility and cyber arm) and is subjected to an AI assessment where all her memories are accessed. AI has the ability to access memories including past lives and can also predict future crimes for the body being reviewed (like minority report). Nela is on her 3rd life span. Her previous bodies were convicted of crimes and so her consciousness has been transferred to a new body (the present day) to a family who lost their daughter in an accident. With a fractured family life, in marriage of convenience, Nela takes a lover; Janith Koshal. Nela and Janith are involved in a reckless marriage, Janith offers the affection and freedom Nela so badly craves in her life. Janith has underground ties to circles that bypass and manipulate the system. He offers Nela the opportunity to get another body, another chance to live her life (by his side) without the constant oppression. While out on a drive, Nela gets into an accident and a murder takes place. Nela now carries a secret, How will she keep this from the authorities, the AI assessments, her microchip! That secret, comes back to not only haunt her, but hunt her entire family and unborn child. Great Story! I love the intertwined Folklore and dystopian theme. The first half of the book is entirely spent building the world/society in which the plot takes place. Rules, regulations, character backgrounds etc. once you push through to 60% of the book the horror and page turning plot takes over. fast paced, thrilling and very entertaining. loved the twist! The ending was a bit weak but everything comes together and it then dragged on a bit more then necessary. Could have been shorter, scaled back a bit on the world building. I can see this being difficult for some to get through because there is so many ideas thrown into the plot. Overall enjoyed it, would recommend. Gorgeous cover!

Thank you Netgalley for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

What a ride. This is a heavy intense sci-fi. I don't usually read sci-fi, but I liked this one so much. It's a slow pace, but I liked seeing how all the matters developed in detail. So many complex subjects but the introspection by the author made me deeply relate to them.

The audiobook narration was fabulous, Christel Mutombo's voice matched the heavy, reflective, slow paced narrative and I enjoyed so very much listening to her.

I received this book from NetGalley for my honest review.