Riot Baby

by Tochi Onyebuchi

Overview

Winner of the 2020 New England Book Award for Fiction!

Winner of the 2021 ALA Alex Award!

Finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Best Outstanding Work of Literary Fiction

A Most Anticipated in 2020 Pick for Book Riot | Buzzfeed | Paste | WBUR

Named a Best of 2020 Pick for NPR | Wired | Book Riot | Publishers Weekly | NYPL | The Austen Chronicle | Kobo | Google Play | Powell's Books | Den of Geek

"Riot Baby, Onyebuchi's first novel for adults, is as much the story of Ella and her brother, Kevin, as it is the story of black pain in America, of the extent and lineage of police brutality, racism and injustice in this country, written in prose as searing and precise as hot diamonds."—The New York Times

"Riot Baby bursts at the seams of story with so much fire, passion and power that in the end it turns what we call a narrative into something different altogether."—Marlon James

Ella has a Thing. She sees a classmate grow up to become a caring nurse. A neighbor's son murdered in a drive-by shooting. Things that haven't happened yet. Kev, born while Los Angeles burned around them, wants to protect his sister from a power that could destroy her. But when Kev is incarcerated, Ella must decide what it means to watch her brother suffer while holding the ability to wreck cities in her hands.

Rooted in the hope that can live in anger, Riot Baby is as much an intimate family story as a global dystopian narrative. It burns fearlessly toward revolution and has quietly devastating things to say about love, fury, and the black American experience.

Ella and Kev are both shockingly human and immeasurably powerful. Their childhoods are defined and destroyed by racism. Their futures might alter the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250214751
Publisher:	Tom Doherty Associates
Publication date:	01/21/2020
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	62,464
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Tochi Onyebuchi is the author of the young adult novel Beasts Made of Night, which won the Ilube Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Novel by an African, its sequel, Crown of Thunder, and War Girls. He holds a B.A. from Yale, a M.F.A. in screenwriting from the Tisch School of the Arts, a Master's degree in droit économique from Sciences Po, and a J.D. from Columbia Law School. His fiction has appeared in Panverse Three, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Obsidian, Omenana Magazine, Uncanny, and Lightspeed. His non-fiction has appeared in Tor.com, Nowhere Magazine, the Oxford University Press blog, and the Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, among other places. Riot Baby is his adult fiction debut.

Editorial Reviews

I experienced Tochi Onyebuchi's Riot Baby as one tightly held breath. Moving from South Central Los Angeles to Harlem to Rikers Island to a speculative near-future in short bursts of fierce feeling, Riot Baby…is as much the story of Ella and her brother, Kevin, as it is the story of black pain in America, of the extent and lineage of police brutality, racism and injustice in this country, written in prose as searing and precise as hot diamonds…I read this book with frustrating double vision: seeing with one eye the gorgeousness of Onyebuchi's writing, the visceral heat of it, and with the other the vast indifference of the people who most need to be confronted with its power.

The New York Times Book Review - Amal El-Mohtar

★ 11/11/2019

Onyebuchi (War Girls) paints a grim, dystopian portrait of contemporary America shot through with elements of the supernatural in this urgent, brutal work. Ella Jackson and her baby brother, Kev, are both preternaturally gifted. The “Riot Baby,” Kev, is born in 1992 Los Angeles, just hours after the courts acquitted the cops that beat Rodney King and the city erupted in violence. As a teenager in New York, Kev is brutally assaulted by police and arrested for no crime but being black; he spends the next eight years incarcerated at Rikers. During this time, Ella visits him both in person and psychically, constantly using her powers to offer him glimpses of freedom and life outside the prison walls and lead him on a path toward a revolutionary future as, in the outside world, incidents of police brutality rise and their mother’s health fails. Onyebuchi’s unexpectedly hopeful ending is just as powerful as his unflinching, heartbreaking depictions of racism and cruelty. This staggering story is political speculative fiction at its finest. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Winner of the 2020 New England Book Award for Fiction!

A Most Anticipated in 2020 Pick for Book Riot | Buzzfeed | Paste | WBUR

Named a Best of 2020 Pick for NPR | Wired | Book Riot | Publishers Weekly | NYPL | The Austen Chronicle | Kobo | Google Play | Powell's Books | Den of Geek

“Onyebuchi’s voice work is magnificent, sharp and whipping. . . . This book recognizes that intimate knowledge of suffering can be a source of strength, can be sustaining as well as depressing — that we can grieve the inheritance of generations of ancestors’ pain while marveling at their endurance, and recognize that resilience as part of their legacy."—The New York Times

"Urgent, brutal. . . . Onyebuchi’s unexpectedly hopeful ending is just as powerful as his unflinching, heartbreaking depictions of racism and cruelty. This staggering story is political speculative fiction at its finest."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Onyebuchi sheds light on a world of harsh familiarity and fantastical originality with his incredible worldbuilding and devastating prose. Stark, sharp, and brutal, this story will burn in readers' minds long after the last page."—Library Journal, starred review

"Tochi Onyebuchi uses the hallmarks of sci-fi and dystopia to convey the experience of being a Black person in the world.”—Oprah Magazine

“At its core, Riot Baby’s about sibling love, broken communities, loss, sacrifice and harnessing one’s power to break free. . . . An experience and an absolute must-read.”—FIYAH

"Transformational, devastating and truthful. . . . The most extraordinary novel I have read in years, if ever, and I can’t imagine another book this year coming anywhere near its greatness."—The Oklahoman

"Riot Baby is Tochi Onyebuchi’s incandescent adult debut. . . . 'Anger is an energy,' declared ex-Sex Pistol John Lydon, and Onyebuchi harnesses this energy to warming and clarifying effect.”—Seattle Review of Books

"There is a richness and depth to Onyebuchi's prose that delivers an intricate and textured world at once rife with violence and teeming with familial love. . . . Onyebuchi demonstrates that dystopia for African-Americans in the U.S. resides in the recent past and continues today."—Booklist

"Equal parts provocative and riveting, Riot Baby is what all speculative fiction should strive to be: wholly captivating.”—Salon

“[A] phenomenal, explosive little novel. . . . It uses compression and craft to render the reader breathless."—Locus

"Expertly weaves supernatural elements through an all-too-realistic, thrilling story."—BookPage

"Impossible to put down."—Buzzfeed

"A thrilling, intense, nail-biting read that transcends genre and has an ending of biblical proportions."—Grimdark Magazine

"Riot Baby bursts at the seams of story with so much fire, passion and power that in the end it turns what we call a narrative into something different altogether."—Marlon James

“Onyebuchi has woven a story as uplifting as it is heartbreaking, an epic ode to the future and past, tiny acts of resistance, love, and the wild unstoppable sweep of revolution.”—Daniel José Older

"Tochi Onyebuchi is, primarily, a generous world-builder. His journey into this is honed and sharpened with Riot Baby, which asks a reader to care deeply for the interior of its characters, and the fights they have taken on."—Hanif Abdurraqib

"Onyebuchi's adult debut is a stunningly, vitally harrowing story and genre at its very best."—Kiersten White

"Riot Baby is the burning embers of a revolution. . . the quiet rage of generations of people who have been told they are lesser than others. It’s the flash of accelerant in a genre that needs the burn."—Mark Oshiro

"Stunningly original, brutal, and electric. Onyebuchi’s prose scorches. It’s hard to put this book down, and when you do, it stays with you."—R. F. Kuang

"Onyebuchi welds a graphic novel sensibility to a searing look at structural inequity in America today. This isn't Jack Womack or J.G. Ballard's broken near future: it's our own photorealistic broken present. Riot Baby is an important book."—Elizabeth Bear

"Onyebuchi's Riot Baby is thrilling and harrowing in the tradition of Ward's Sing, Unburied, Sing."—Fran Wilde

"Powerful. Furious. Riot Baby carries the full weight of black American fury and grief, woven together with a masterful story of two siblings and a magic so powerful it will change the face of everything they know."—K. B. Wagers

From the Publisher

★ 12/01/2019

Ella hates Compton's gang members, brutal acts, and systemic racism—especially as she has visions of the youth around her losing their lives. When Compton burns during the Rodney King riots of 1992, her brother Kev is born during a night of fire, rage, and violence. Moving to Harlem does not change things: Ella's powers take her away from family and the familiar, and Kev is raised in a world that ultimately incarcerates him for being young and black. Visiting him in prison, Ella shows Kev that his own powers can be a path to revelation and fiery revolution. VERDICT Onyebuchi (War Girls) sheds light on a world of harsh familiarity and fantastical originality with his incredible worldbuilding and devastating prose. Stark, sharp, and brutal, this story will burn in readers' minds long after the last page.—Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., Northampton

Library Journal

11/01/2020

Gr 9 Up—Ella's Thing allows her to conjure orbs of light, whip up a stiff breeze, and even blow up rats crawling in the apartment she shares with her younger brother Kev—the book's narrator—and their mother. But before it's fully developed, the Thing is provoked by anger and leaves Ella frail and exhausted. She's a loving and protective older sister to the very smart Kev, and is often angered by injustices in her neighborhood. After Ella is particularly affected by the murder of a young Black man on the news, she vanishes to the desert where she hones her powers. Much of the book's setting alternates between the desert and Rikers Island jail, where Kev ends up for his questionable involvement in an attempted armed robbery. Ella is a powerful, omniscient protagonist who embodies Black Girl Magic and superhero strength. Yet she is weighed down by her experience of being a Black woman in America. She relives family members' traumas, including her mother's stillborn delivery by a disinterested doctor and her brother's time in Rikers. Elements of science fiction are blended with discomforting near-reality (for example, Kev is microchipped when he's released, through which he is monitored and medicated). Similarly, actual events propel the narrative: The LA Riots, the Charleston AME Church shooting, and confederate flag disputes are just a few examples. Strong language and drug use is present, but should not dissuade one from adding this short novel to their collection. VERDICT That Kev is a young adult through the bulk of the novel helps make this a compelling choice for those serving older teens.—Lindsay Jensen, Nashville P.L.

School Library Journal

Read More