Rosewater by Tade Thompson Review

Wow, what a book! I loved this and am about to order the next two books in the series.

The book follows Kaaro in two different timelines, with occasional dips into other points in Kaaro’s life. He is an excellent protagonist: a thief and psychic who doesn’t seem to care much about anyone or anything except himself.

Thrown into this mix are an alien entity which resides inside a dome that the titular city surrounds. To say more at this point would venture into spoilers, and one of the reasons I loved this book so much was I knew nothing going in, so I’m not going to ruin the journey for anyone else.

Highly recommended, but of course, no (?) book is perfect, so my very few probelms with it are listed below but they venture into spoilers, so be warned. Stop reading now if you want a superior slice of dark science fiction and go buy it, preferably from a local book store rather than one of the big onliners.

So, problems: not many to be perfectly honest. My main one was a slight confusion with the timelines on occasion. It was easy to follow, but I did catch myself looking at the dates at the chapter start sometimes. This is a minor point, probably down to me being tired more than anything else.

A more problematic one came when Kaaro visits the home of Aminat for the first time. He meets her brother who is in chains. This is explained as the novel progresses, but on first meeting, Kaaro is a little too accepting of this. If I met my girlfiends borther for the first time and it looked like he was being kepy forcibly prisoner in the house, I doubt I’d make it to a second date.

As I said at the start though, this is an excellent book and Tade Thompson deserves the success he’s had with this book and subsequent trilogy. I can’t wait to read more.