Allen Richard's Reviews > Death of the Author

"I have come to understand that author, art, and audience all adore one another."*

Death of the Author is meta, literary, and science fiction all at the same time. We follow our protagonist Zelu, a disabled Nigerian American author, who is down on her luck after being fired from a teaching gig. When her new novel Rusted Robots suddenly becomes a bestseller, she's forced to reckon with fame and online criticism while dealing with personal and family issues. There's a story-within-a-story as we read chapters from Rusted Robots as well as interviews with family members about their relationship with Zelu.

This was an interesting ride: a mixture of Yellowface and an episode of the Netflix show Love, Death, + Robots, maybe with a bit of Becky Chambers mixed in. This explored art/writing, the audience, and author, and their relationship with one another. The story-within-a-story style book can be hit or miss as one story usually outweighs another, but this one was an overall hit.

I would recommend this for fans of meta fiction, literary fiction, and for those who want to dabble into a little bit of sci-fi or afro-futurism. I've read the Binti Trilogy and She Who Knows by this author, but this was much different than what I'm used to from her. 3.75

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this in exchange for an honest review.

*Quote taken from advance copy, subject to change in final release.