A review by laralarks
This World Is Not Yours by Kemi Ashing-Giwa

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Sometimes it’s clear from the beginning that a book is something special. This World is Not Yours grabbed my attention from the first page, and dragged me into its lush and dangerous world with alarming swiftness. Ashing-Giwa’s brand of horror is creeping, inevitable, and beautiful, with prose that feels like a love letter even as it rips you apart. This novella strikes an admirable balance in illuminating both the human and extraterrestrial as horrific; even as the characters experience fantastical circumstances they feel grounded and real enough to become deeply invested in. As a lover of queer horror, I appreciated that the queerness in this book is a matter of course as opposed to the primary thrust driving the violence. Sometimes we just want to see gays going through it for some other reason than their gayness, and this is a stellar example queer identities existing and being explored without being the cause of the horror. Some novellas leave me feeling like the form is an excuse to not fully flesh out the plot/setting/circumstances, but in this case, Ashing-Giwa obviously took precisely the amount of pages she needed to tell the story, and not one word more or less is included. I have no frustratingly unresolved questions, no feeling of being cheated out of a more complex story. I honestly can’t think of one negative thing to say about this book.

*e-arc provided by netgalley