A familial drama with a fun, empowering, and emotional sci-fi twist!

This is definitely more in the lit-fic and family saga realm of things, so if Sci-Fi is intimidating, this may be the book for you. Alternately, if you are a fan of R.F. Kuang’s “Yellowface” OR Becky Chamber’s “Psalm For the Wild-Built” this will DEFINITELY be up your alley!

I wasn’t fully sure what to expect going into this story, I definitely was expecting this book to lean into the Science Fiction of everything more-so than it did, but a treat nonetheless.

A wonderfully lively examination of 1st Generation American families, Nigerian culture, and the experience of a disabled woman of color finding herself & her own voice against ALL odds.

This is NOT one to miss.

This deserves five stars, without reservation. I will admit, I didn’t really get into it for the first fifty pages, at least, and part of it was because I loathe the F word with a passion. Note: said word is the expression of choice, repeatedly, for nearly every character in the book. However! The book is fabulous. It’s a book within a book, and I loved both stories. I actually would like to read the main character’s book in its entirety.

I don’t want to say much more, but I will say this: The way Zelu’s family treats her is abhorrent. It made me so upset for her.

Just read this. It’s phenomenal.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the pleasure of reading this book. All opinions are mine alone.

PS: I would love to see a sequel, but I won’t harass Ms. Okorafor online for it. If it comes, it comes. IYKYK.

firstly, thank you to the publisher for an arc!

3.5 rounded up

while i love the book-within-a-book trope, i felt that the “rusted robots” chapters that zelu wrote were too short to be immersive/fully appreciated.

additionally, this felt more lit-fic/family drama than sci-fi, which was a bit of a let down.

i am very excited to see the illumicrate/starbright special edition, though!

When I saw this book available for review, I eagerly requested a copy, as I’ve always enjoyed this author’s work. However, I have to admit it didn’t meet my expectations. Perhaps literary fiction just isn’t for me. I found myself more interested by the fictional book Rusted Robots mentioned in the novel than the actual story itself. Unfortunately, the main female character, Zelu, was difficult to connect with—her personality felt unbearable and unlikeable. Additionally, the plot moved at a sluggish pace, which made it hard to stay engaged. I ended up stopping at 21% and didn’t feel compelled to continue. Thank you NetGalley for providing the review copy.

Representation: Disabled Nigerian MC, Nigerian family and many Black ensemble, along with a few queer ensemble

Zelu has been through it, suddenly dropped from her university job and another novel rejection while she’s at her sister’s wedding. She has no idea what’s in store for her next as a disabled and unemployed person in a high-achieving and judgmental family. Zelu is just over it all, and decides to take a risk on writing something that she’s never written before. She doesn’t even read sci-fi, but that’s exactly what she writes, a story about robots, AI, and humanity being extinct. This book changes the course of her life, and indeed, the world.

Rating: 5/5 Holy shit y’all. I have shockingly not read any of Okorafor’s work yet, despite having several on my TBR for years now. I will absolutely be reading more of her work, having read this incredible story. This story is told in three frameworks - Zelu’s experience as she journeys through the writing of this book and the world’s reaction to it and her; interviews with family and loved ones; and parts of the story that Zelu wrote. Don’t go into this expecting a full sci-fi story, this is very much a story about humanity, the ugliness and beauty of it all. It touches on disability, cultural identity, fame, familial dynamics and expectations, technology, and so much. We see Zelu fighting against the image that her family has of her, a disabled child, and the world of her as a disabled adult. She wants to scream no, I am an adult and have a life, I don’t need your pity, I just need you to listen to me. I’ve seen some people comment on how toxic her close family is and how that’s unrealistic. Unfortunately, as a Deaf person, I have seen so many Deaf people go through life with zero relationship to their family, because they just don’t understand or are unwilling to accommodate the needs of the disabled person. This portrayal of Zelu’s family is sadly a very possible reality. I can’t speak to the wheelchair user aspect of it, so I will leave that to reviewers who have that experience. We get a full look into the experience of an author who has a sudden rise to fame, dealing with all the attention and demands from their fans, and struggling to live up to those expectations, while at the same time managing what they’re willing or not willing to do. Not only that, Zelu is descended from high-ranking Igbo and Yoruba. That adds another layer onto her experience, with Nigerians debating her novel completely set in her home country of Nigeria, despite her not living most of her life there. She wanted to pay homage to her ancestral land, and show the world an African story, a Nigerian story that doesn’t center the white person or Americans. Zelu felt like a real person, she is far from perfect. She’s stubborn, very blunt and honest, slightly immature and petty, but she’s also very intelligent, knows what she wants and won’t accept anything else. I don’t know how I feel about the interview portion, it felt slightly disconnected at times for me, but I really enjoyed getting words directly from the other characters, rather than what Zelu’s perception of them was. It gave us some more insight into how people viewed Zelu, and I appreciated how each character was easily distinct, which is very difficult to do with a large cast of characters. I personally really enjoyed the novel-in-a-novel, I’m very much a lover of sci-fi. I liked the concepts of Ankara versus Ijele, physical consciousness vs disembodied AI, the war between their kinds and finding common ground. Not human, yet oh so human. I did find myself often wanting more, one chapter stuck in between Zelu’s story never felt enough. I would gladly dive into a whole book written in this post-humanity world with Ankara and Ijele. Overall, this was an amazing story about an immigrant child breaking away from familial expectations and chasing her dreams, sometimes at the cost of others, along with a story about robots that’s still somehow about the experience of being human.

Death Of The Author is an emotional and inspiring story full of twists and turns. Full of heart and a burning spirit of asserting your being and identity in a world hellbent on forcing you into a box. This story has something everyone can enjoy and relate to; from overbearing family's that often mean well but miss the mark every time, to feeling invisible and excluded in a family and community of boisterous vivacious spirits, to struggles with finding oneself after reaching your lowest point.

Zelu is a character that I didn't know I needed until I read this story. She is a proud and lively disabled woman who is unapologetically herself and chases her dreams and goals no matter the odds. Even through struggles of dealing with a society bent on controlling her and treating her as delicate and incapable, every page she proves the world wrong that she is not only capable she will never back down even if she is alone. Zelu's self loathing for her disability and struggles to love herself for who she is while never letting someone put her into a box is deeply personal to me and resonated with me as I've felt my own power be stripped away due to disabilities that isolated me and chronic illnesses that have often resulted in well meaning loved ones hurting me because they didn't understand the struggles.

Within the book you get to read almost 3 stories in 1! The book Zelu is writing, the story of Zelu herself and her journey through life, and the interviews with her family after her book Rusted Robots becomes a huge success.

You are taken on adventure throughout the US and even Nigeria. The beating heart of Okorafor's culture makes the story electric and expands the reader's experience. Truly a wonderful story that I feel many need.

Interesting concept and creatively written. It was a little too slow for me at times. I was expecting more of a sci-fi book, which this really wasn't, so make sure you know that before starting! Thank you, NetGalley.

*3.75*
Very meta! I really enjoyed the journey and all of the different pieces that were used to build this story - a combo of Zelu's perspective, snippets of her novel, and interviews with her friends and family. Somehow it all works. I'd say this leans more towards literary than sci-fi, but it was a perfect combo for me. I loved Zelu. She was incredibly frustrating at times but so real and relatable.

Knocked down a bit due to the ending <spoiler> which features my absolute least favorite trope, but I think it was somewhat justified as a device that allowed Zelu to take a step further into the real-life sci fi modifications. </spoiler>

Previously I'd only read Binti from Nnedi Okorafor and didn't love it, but now definitely planning to check out some more of her adult and full-length works.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Nnedi Okorafor’s Death of the Author is a thought-provoking and beautifully crafted exploration of identity, authorship, and the meaning of storytelling in a world where the boundaries between writer, text, and reader constantly shift. This book is a stunning blend of two running narratives and both are brilliant. If you like science fiction with heart, this book is for you.

Thank you NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for a review. This did not affect my thoughts or opinions on this novel.

In the near future United States, adjunct professor Zelu's life is about to hit its nadir. Death of the Author begins, with a family wedding, where she loses her job. Shortly thereafter she is forced to give up her apartment and move back in with her parents. Her large Nigerian-American family is loud, accomplished, and has regularly been highly supportive, but sometimes what is intended as advice or making sure one considers all the aspects of a situation can become restrictive and leave one trapped both by circumstances and over caution. *Light spoiler* Due to falling out of a tree at 12, Zelu is paraplegic and had to give up on her dreams of being an astronaut. Against a family of lawyers, engineers and doctors, what hopes are there for Zelu's skills as a writer? At her bottom, Zelu dives into a new project that will challenge her in ways never expected and perhaps open her up to a wider world.

Okorafor is well known for her strong character driven science fiction and fantasy works, including Binti. In Death of the Author Okorafor embraces some of the possibilities of our near future, but much of the plot is fueled by inter-familial structure and relationships. And of course plays with Roland Barthes literary criticism concept of not relying on the intentions or biography of an author to give meaning to a text. This concept is further developed as we are also treated to chapters of Zelu's post human robot work after it is written, alternating the narrative with Zelu's book and interviews with those close to her. There is much darkness hinted, but the reader must journey to the end themselves.

It a journey of self-discovery, over coming adversity, finding clarity and self acceptance.

Recommended for books within books, self discovery that is not coming-of-age, or near-future science fiction.

Generously stretching my estimation to 3.5 stars or so, so it can be rounded up.

I somehow keep reading Nnedi Okorafor books, despite every time deciding that I respected the book more than I liked it, and declaring that it was my last one. This one I made an exception for, since it's a wide swing away from the African-fantasist things I had most recently been reading by her: a mostly-grounded near-future novel with only the lightest sci-fi elements (mainly, a well-developed autonomous taxi industry [though newly established enough that the main character's parents' generation can be like "oh, those newfangled robot cars, don't trust them!"] and the existence of cutting-edge prosthetic leg exoskeleton prototypes). The focus is not sci-fi, but rather mostly an author struggling with abrupt fame from writing a smash-hit science fiction novel while also being a Nigerian-American paraplegic woman, with all the imposter syndrome, family drama, culture clash, racism, and ableism that entails.

Nnedi Okorafor is a good writer, and there are several very compelling sequences throughout the book. Her afterword includes a line thanking her daughter for reminding her not to worry about people thinking Zelu (the main character) was her - differences in professional biography aside, Okorafor is nevertheless also a Nigerian-American woman author of speculative fiction who was paralyzed from the waist down due to complications from spinal surgery, though she has since recovered the ability to walk. This is both good and bad, for the novel: on the one hand, Okorafor brings an authenticity to Zelu's struggles with her disability (especially the flashbacks to shortly after her accident and her subsequent difficulties adjusting and recovering) and the perspective on the cultural strain of bridging Nigerian and American family dynamics, even if we accept her at her word that the dynamics at play are not exactly drawn from her life; on the other, I always find it a little weird when an author writes a book about a lightly fictionalized version of themselves and then spends the whole book having everybody be like "oh my God, your book is so amazing, you are the finest writer of science fiction alive."

There are a few issues like that, where the book sort of strained my suspension of disbelief (for lack of a better term). I'm going on too long already, so I'll just mention the biggest one: Zelu gets to be a user of a prototype leg exoskeleton that enables her to walk again, and nearly her entire family throws a fit because it's either dangerous or against God's will to use a machine to contravene her disability -- maybe this is a genuine portrait of a certain cultural attitude in the Nigerian or Nigerian-American community, but the counterargument of "but I currently use a machine (a wheelchair)" is so obvious and irrefutable that it makes either the family's opposition unbelievable, or unbelievable that Zelu would not have cut out her family after that kind of treatment. It's not just her family, either: she gets pushback from the host of a major news talk show as well as various quoted social media posts on the general grounds that "oh you rich person how dare you take advantage of expensive robot legs that other disabled people can't get, also it is ableist to want to walk again!" and I found all of that foofaraw incomprehensible. Yeah, maybe some people would have a problem with the inequitable access to fancy tech, but this shit is still a brand-new development, it obviously wouldn't be available cheaply and everywhere yet, and the amount of people essentially telling Zelu that she should remain wheelchair-bound because it's unfair not to was baffling to me.

I said the book was only lightly sci-fi, but that's because I am ignoring the fact that there are chapters interspersed also telling the story from Zelu's bestselling book (with the boring title of <i>Rusted Robots</i>). This is basically because, past a certain point, I also ignored those chapters. I don't know, perhaps they served a grand emotional counterpoint to the contemporary story (and in the end seemed to be trying to recontextualize all the events in Zelu's storyline), but I found myself fairly uninterested in them and also rolling my eyes at this story which I was uninterested in being lauded in-universe as a great masterpiece of science fiction. Authors: don't do this. Never set up some in-universe work of fiction as The Best Ever and then include snippets of that work in the book. It almost never works and it's distracting.

Anyway, after complaining about the book the whole time in this review I nevertheless say, it's pretty good, go read it if you want. Just don't expect it to be as mindblowing as <i>Rusted Robots</i>.

This book wasn’t what I was expecting. The main character hates her life, everybody, and the world. I was expecting a scifi book, not a lit fic book. Also the writing did not work for me. It’s filled with stilted sentences. For these reasons, I dnf’d it

Actually a 4.5.

This was an incredible book to start of 2025 with. I'll start of by saying this is more so literary fiction with more muted sci-fi elements, so manage your expectations accordingly. That said, I think it manages to blend the two genres together in a really interesting and unique way. I've never read a book quite like this one and I was really impressed by it. Not only does it manage to blend two genres I don't necessarily associate with each other, but it also manages to seamlessly blend together *two different stories*, subplots, characters, relationships, etc. It all just flows together so easily you don't really notice how much you're really absorbing. I will say that at points the pacing was a bit too fast and I wish we'd gotten to spend more time with Zelu during her journey writing her novel and within the literary world, but this book covers so much time that sometimes it just had to zap from one point to the next.

I *loved* the ending. Everything just goes full circle in a twist that maybe I should have seen coming, but I definitely didn't. The only thing I have to say I found underwhelming about the ending was that through the entire novel we are reading interviews with Zelu's loved ones after some undefined thing happens to her, but it's never actually made clear what that undefined thing actually was.

This is one of those books where you can just feel the love the author had for it coming off the page and I think that really helped the experience.

Death of the Author is a book about disability, loss, humanity, and so much more. Zelu is the black sheep of her Nigerian-American family, more so since she lost the use of her legs as a child. She is outspoken and unconventional, and when her family and community don't look at her with pity and disgust, they look at her with exasperation and frustration.

Then, Zelu writes a book about sentient robots and is a sensation. It offers her opportunities her family cannot and will not understand. As frustrated as Zelu's family is with her, the reader becomes more so with her family. It makes the book a tough read at times.

Alternating between Zelu and her book, with chapters from the perspectives of her family members, Death of the Author is a thoughtful and memorable book.

Slice of life literary fiction with sci-fi elements and a story within a story.

Nnedi Okorafor is a phenomenal writer and an excellent storyteller - her prose is great and she writes in a way that propels you forward. This book does not disappoint in terms of style and craft.

I think fans of literary fiction and slice of life style narratives will enjoy this. - This could be a great choice for those who love LitFic but want to dabble in sci-fi.

Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow for sending this book (eARC) for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Thanks to @harpercollins and @netgalley I received an advanced copy of this book. It’s been sitting on my tablet for months but decided to start the new year by reading it.

Wow. This book is deep, cultural, and well thought out out while weaving different tales at the same time. The main character is Zelu, a paralyzed author, who while down on her luck decides to write something new. A science fiction novel called Rusted Robots, which tells the story of robots living on earth after the fall of humanity. The book becomes a raging success and makes her a star. But she struggles with the fame, the pressure to write the sequel, the abomination of the movie version, and the conflict with her family members. There is rich culture characters and details in the book about her parents home country of Nigeria, which is fascinating to learn new phrases, customs, and storytelling. Interweaved with the story are passages from the book, Rusted Robots, and interviews with people who know the author. The book is long and really tells a great story with a fascinating ending. Sorry it took me this long to read it but it was worth it. Highly recommend you check it out when it comes out later this month.

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I loved this book. It's crazy to think I might have already read one of my favorite books of 2025, but there it is. I loved Zelu, even when she was frustrating (to be fair she was surrounded by frustrating things/people), loved reading about an author being frustrated and struggling to get the words out of her head. The reaction/massive success of the book did seem a little exaggerated (especially since, if I'm honest, the chapters of the book-within-this-book were just pretty good... Zelu's story was much better imo. I could see Rusted Robots being POPULAR but earning multi-millions and an immediate film adapatation that ruled the world seemed a bit farfetched). But the book had to be popular to propel the story, so I'll forgive it.

My only nitpick is there were a touch too few exclamation marks scattered throughout, but that's an "author voice" thing that can be forgiven in the face of an otherwise excellent read.

While the story-within-story in different time lines/epochs is now a standard narrative device, the plot frames of technology, friendship, love, self-respect makes this a compelling read. The narration itself is not particularly poetic - simple, descriptive, but evokes a wonderful imagery of a futuristic environment that is plausible. The plot building is less via dialogs (and most characters sound similar) and more from self-reporting by each character or as a third person interview. That device seems to retain ones interest sustained. Learning a bit more about Nigerian families is a tiny additional bonus, though the treatment is not the primary focus and adds just a little context for the real story. Overall,. a wonderful plot with some excellent twists, though told through n0w-common device of nested stories in different timelines.

Family, Fame, stories and death, unresolved trauma, technology and disability.

The good. Very accurate representation of an African family. Full and protective but ignorant and emotionally toxic. I liked the h. Fearless, bright, unapologetic yet so stubbornly independent, sensitive and vulnerable. This was a celebration of African cultures, history, food and landscape. Loved that. I also love reading about wealthy Africans. It fills me with so much pride. Like yea I could be like you one day. The other characters defining the h more with their chapters was fine but ultimately not necessary. The author painted the h so well these chapters told me nothing new about her or the other characters themselves to be honest.

The bad. Midway the h gets hung up on something and it feels like the story stalls while she tries to clear her head. It’s like we were building to something scientific, terrific, dystopian, futuristic, interesting, now the novel is chapters and chapters of a family drama with predictable beats— death, mourning, reconnection and reunion, trauma and re-cycle. So many themes and ideas and possibilities were filtered and discarded to focus on the boring singular journey of letting go and moving on/forward. Great but cliché. It’s like two different stories were spliced together and they meet in the middle with no bridge. Then the story within the story became something I cared less and less about as a consequence. In a section before the acknowledgements the author pretty much confirms my theory. The story was written while taking a break in the middle. Girl, it shows.

Like, two random men give her two life altering opportunities out of the blue. Just because. She keeps doing random rash things. Just because. Now it feels like I’m reading about a self destructive teenager not dealing with her issues and dragging her loved ones down with her because of it. No offense but I didn’t sign up for a YA novel. I don’t even read YA anymore because I’ve outgrown it. In my humble opinion, the h deserved more maturity and a fuller, better story.

*Thank you N. Okorafor and William Morrow for the, Death of the Author ARC. My opinions are my own.

I’ve always wanted to read two books at the exact same time. Who hasn’t? Nnedi Okorafor made that dream a reality with Death of the Author. It’s not just two stories in one, but a book within a book. And both of them are fantastic.

We have a book about Zelu, a disabled Nigerian-American author with a troubled life and loads of trauma who makes it big with Rusted Robots, a sci-fi book about robots. And then we have the sci-fi book about robots, which stars Ankara (who named herself after African Ankara fabric), a humanoid robot in future Nigeria who loves stories and hopes to save them from the AI that wishes to destroy them. There are a lot of parallels between each story and it was so fun to bounce back and forth between the two.

Zelu’s story was at the forefront though, and it covers 5+ years of her life as she writes Rusted Robots and deals with the aftermath of its publication. From dealing with the fame to lack of family support and navigating new relationships, Zelu really goes through it and I loved being there every step of the way, especially since she’s such a deep and interesting character. She’s brutally honest in a lot of ways, but I found myself wishing she’d use that honesty more often with her very large Nigerian family. They’re half Igbo, half Yoruba, which sometimes resulted in some conflicting traditions and customs. Zelu and her siblings are American too, so it was interesting to see how that influenced the way their Nigerian family treated them. There was so much Nigerian culture woven into Death of the Author, and I loved the glimpse into a world I’m not typically privy to.

Ankara’s story was also great. It was shorter, but it packed a punch all the same. The future she lives in is fascinating. I loved the evolution of her relationship with Ijele and the way the war affected her decisions.

This is one of my favorite sci-fi books in recent history. I’m completely in love with it and with Nnedi Okorafor’s writing. Before I even finished this one, I grabbed another of her books from the library. I’m so happy she’s written a bunch of stuff so I can read it all this year!