Jordan Ifueko is a Nigerian-American author of Young Adult fiction. She stans revolutionary girls and 4C curls.
Raybearer is her debut novel.
At Tor.com she tagged five favorite fantasy titles that expertly explore traumatic family bonds, including:
Zel by Donna Jo Napoli
I include this book because it traumatized me as a young reader, showing just how abusive mother-daughter bonds can go. Zel is a retelling of Rapunzel, from the perspective of Mother, a soft-spoken witch who aches to have a baby—
and Zel, the child she manages to procure. It follows the storyline of the original fairy tale, which is significantly grimmer than any Disney iteration (the prince gets blinded by falling into a patch of thorns, and that’s among the least traumatic events in this book), but concentrates heavily on the sincere love that Mother has for Zel, which teeters constantly toward obsession, until it tumbles into emotional (and finally physical) abuse. This classic retelling is not for the faint of heart.
Read about
the other entries on the list.
--Marshal Zeringue
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