“What is wrong with this silly girl?” he muttered as Sunny leaned against the Jeep with her arm on the warm door. She didn’t need to worry about dirt. As always, it was spotless. Sunny suspected he paid some of the younger boys in the neighborhood to wash it often. Chukwu had gotten the Jeep three weeks ago, and he would take it with him to the University of Port Harcourt in five days.
The second of the YA finalists for me, a rollicking tale of 13-year-old Sunny, who is an albino Nigerian and also part of the magical Leopard Society, and must confront human and inhuman enemies to save her society. I particularly loved the immersion in Nigerian contemporary detail, adapting a lot of Young Wizard tropes to a non-Western society with great efficiency. It's still not really my sub-genre, and it loses a point or two for being second in a series where I haven't read the first, but in general thumbs up. I bounced pretty thoroughly off both the Binti novellas, but really liked Lagoon which was also firmly set in Nigeria with a difference. You can get it here.
