Review by Booklist Review
Cinnamon Jones returns (after Will Do Magic for Small Change, 2016) in a postapocalyptic groove of a novel that reads like magic and feels like a song. Cinnamon, like everyone else, is just trying to survive after the Water Wars left Earth devastated. The Next World Festival is fast approaching, but her heart isn't in it. She's got rehearsing musicians, sentient robots, ghost dogs, and godlike beings raising people from the dead counting on her. Unfortunately, Cinnamon's past keeps appearing in her present. When an old flame that betrayed Cinnamon offers her the chance to write code to help her friends and change the world, Cinnamon is tempted. Will she make the right choice? Will the show go on? Hairston's prose pulls the reader in with pop-culture references and wild metaphors. The world building centers around telling the stories of the many characters that move in and out of Cinnamon's life, but like any good protagonist, she's the star, with powerful internal conflicts and a strong sense of justice. Recommended for fans of Nalo Hopinkinson and Nnedi Okorafor.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Hairston's magnificent third novel in the sequence that began with Redwood and Wildfire is a multisensory plunge into a dystopian future of climate crisis and warfare over who controls the water. When told from protagonist Cinnamon Jones's point of view, however, the plot skews cozy, focused on personal concerns about weaving meaning from history to create a coherent future. In Cinnamon's case, this means revitalizing the Next World Festival, an annual celebration established by her elders in her youth. Almost 60 now, Cinnamon struggles to make the upcoming event worthy of this heritage. Her plotline is rendered three-dimensional by the interpolated narration of characters with fewer existential concerns but more holistic viewpoints, particularly the AIs and dogs who are her main interlocutors--and who manifestly connect, in ways Cinnamon can't quite bring herself to trust, with the "haints" of her history. The most impressive feat here is the language; Hairston's prose is a dynamic collage of real and invented cultures spiked with italics, inventive capitalization, and musical allusions ("Nobody rescued Cinnamon either. And Saving Your Own Self was a Hard Problem"). Ecocatastrophe and cyberthreats are familiar territory for sci-fi, but Hairston puts a beautiful twist on both in this exploration of "waiting for love to come on back in style." Agent: Kristopher O'Higgins, Scribe Agency. (May)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Hairston's (Will Do Magic for Small Change) latest novel of hoodoo and physics revolves around the Next World Festival that welcomes everyone to share their past and choose their future. This is especially important for a world at the edge of the apocalypse, with climate disasters and corporate greed destroying it. Cinnamon Jones thought she could save the world, but now she's feeling alone, despite her loving community. She's considering canceling the festival, but the ghosts of her family, her living friends, her circus-bot creations, and her dogs--one living, one cyber-revenant--aren't going to let her forget to seek her beautiful future. Along the way, her coding skills, magic, and found family will overcome kidnappers, entitled tech bros, and duplicitous exes and will put on a danged good show. The music of Hairston's prose and her characters' approach to conflict set the novel apart. Opponents are offered understanding and forgiveness before escalation, and there's a sense that even the most recent mistakes don't have to tarnish someone if they're willing to listen and learn. VERDICT This cross between Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler and Kiki's Delivery Service by Eiko Kadono deserves a place in every library.--Matthew Galloway
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