** spoiler alert ** I enjoyed this book. The dialect, and the portrayal of Tan Tan and how she reacted to her abuse was both blatant and subtle, using the traditional stories to emphasize points. The world building was nice and it was good to see something not based on European stereotypes. I liked the various puns on Anansi too.

I was hooked all the way up until the destruction of the alien village. After that, I was disappointed because the book seemed to switch to telling us what happened instead of showing us what happened. We're told Tan Tan wandered around, but since we were shown that earlier in the book, the author glosses it over. I found the change of pace rather jarring.

Also jarring was the emotionally moving, but logically non-nonsensical climax at the carnival. (How did Jacqueline pay for first a car, then a tank? How did anyone build her one in only a few months? (since she's been chasing Tan Tan in it for the last half of her pregnancy) Why would Jacqueline care who the child's father is, especially when she knows who the most likely candidate is? It makes no sense that Jacqueline gave Tan Tan the knife in the hopes that she'd kill her father with it too.) I wanted Tan Tan to have a happy ending so I'm glad she got it, but in many ways, I think it made the book poorer to do so. (Also, the final reveal of the narrator... didn't really have a point.)