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I get the Butler hype. I loved this book.
In a good year, I read 25-30 books. Maybe one a year serves to capture me the way Wild Seed did, enthralling from the first pages, compelling with its conflicts, fascinating with its magic. The resolution was somewhat unsatisfying in the moment, but only because, for a while, I'd convinced myself that this story was heading toward tragedy, when the beginning had actually promised a love story. I was so afraid Anyanwu would never regain her agency. I thought Doro unredeemable, though I'd started out liking him and felt he cared more than the narration would ever let him properly admit.
I was wrong on both counts, and the finale was so deftly orchestrated that it had me rooting for the "villain," for the sake of what and who he loved. That's how you know you've just read a special book--you want happily-ever-after for all the characters, even the bad guy.
As for the protagonist, Anyanwu, she really didn't need any help winning admiration. In fact, her one flaw seemed to be a distinct lack of flaws (much like Ender Wiggin in Speaker for the Dead by OSC, which I reviewed last year), but I've never been a subscriber to the law that your protagonist must be significantly flawed. Not every superhero needs kryponite, they just need to be human enough to struggle with the obstacles placed before them. It's the author's job to make those obstacles big enough that the reader believes even a superhuman can struggle with them, and that's what Butler has done with this book by pitting the perfect human against her antithesis, the perfect inhuman. A compelling read, from the first page to the last.
