Bookish Brews Snapshot
The Infinity Courts by Akemi Dawn Bowman
18 year old Nami is on her way to a high school party when she is murdered on the way. When she wakes up in the afterlife, she finds out our favorite AI has taken over the afterlife & it’s up to Nami to defeat her.
⏱️ Fast Paced 📚 First in Series 🎲 Plot Twists 🌼 Self Discovery
- Genre: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction
Book Review
Glamorous, exciting, surprising, fast paced, heartfelt
The Infinity Courts is a book that I have been looking forward to for months. I’m so so glad I got to read it as participation in this book tour. I was gripped right from the beginning, and my attention and excitement never waivered while reading.
Infinity Courts is about an 18 year old girl, Nami, who is on her way to a party, where she is finally going to define the relationship with her first love, and best friend. On the way, she is murdered in a robbery, and wakes up in the afterlife, which has been taken over by the artificial intelligence assistant, Ophelia (you may know her counterparts, Siri and Alexa).
Honestly, this book blew me away. Books like this are the reason that I like to read YA. It was fast paced, action packed, creative, and confusing. It followed some great YA tropes, but did them so well! And I can genuinely say that I did not see the ending coming. I literally gasped! Maybe I just wasn’t paying enough attention, but it really got me!
The best part for me was that Nami is a mixed Asian main character! I was immediately drawn to that. As a half Asian woman myself, it was so nice to see Nami be such a badass and care for others in the way that she did. Even through her mistakes and stubbornness, she was so REAL. So HUMAN. It’s far too often that mixed characters are regarded as monstrosities, mutts, mongrels, whatever. As you can imagine, it’s not fun to read. (Bonus: Check out this article by the inspirational Aliette de Bodard on this topic) I wish I saw characters like Nami more often.
Akemi Dawn Bowman really did a fantastic job with this book. It’s not just about Nami’s adventure in the afterlife. It’s about grief, hope, love, uncertainty, and what it means to be human. It begs the question that we will all have to ask eventually, what really separates humans from AI? What makes us human in life or in the after life? What are we willing to risk for freedom? Is it really so easy to forget who you are?
The Infinity Courts reminded me exactly why I love to read YA. I loved every bit of this book, and it had my undivided attention from the very start until the very end. The feeling of satisfaction after I finished reading this one was pure book bliss!
Book Aesthetic
