Adeyemi First Third

 Jasper Martin 

Dr Ellis 

EN 376 

16 October, 2023 

Adeyemi First Third

    The first thing I noticed about Adeyemi's "Of Blood and Bone" was the immediate implications of the differences between the story's main protagonist, Zelie, and others in society, mainly those with higher social status. She is said to have a lower social status than others due to her position as a diviner, which is seen as being a part of the magical world that the king and his followers have attempted to get rid of, as diviners have latent magical abilities. This of course has implications in the real world of those who's countries had been colonized, as it even goes so far in the story to explicitly say that Zelie's sparring partner, Yemi (someone of higher social stature and wealthier) has lighter skin than Zelie. This is a nod towards the whites of Europe coming into the societies of the lands they colonized and removing the "magic," they already had there, and replacing it with their ideal society filled with machinery. 


    Something I found myself enjoying a lot about the novel so far was how alive the world felt of this story compared to many other novels. Adeyemi makes sure to add just enough details to make sure that everything in the story feels real and fully fleshed out without overwhelming the reader. I really like how they went about giving names to a lot of the locations, concepts, and even gave slang to the world, which all makes it feel much more like you are reading actual events that happened in a faraway land. For example, they have their own concept of heaven, called "Alafia," and the nobles have their own metal called majacite which is effective against magic. These may seem like simple things to add to a story but when a lot of small details like these add up, they make the world so much more enjoyable to learn about. Comparatively speaking, despite me thinking that No Viro was written using a more fluidly flowing and more expansive vernacular, I think the worldbuilding in Of Blood and Bone is really on another level, and is really one of the major highlights of the story so far, for me at least. 

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