Rosewater is not a perfect book, but it is the kind of book where the imperfections actually make it better. Look elsewhere for the plot summary. I want to talk about the world and character building, both of which were fascinating.
First of all, Thompson's scientific premise of the effects of the alien he calls Wormwood was very effective and convincing. The concept of a planet-wide bacterial infection that allows some people to read thoughts is convincing on two levels--it makes sense in and of itself, and then you realize it is probably just our poor metaphor for what is really going on.But what really sets the stage is our protagonist, Kaaro. Kaaro is an anti-hero and (as others have noted) an unreliable narrator, which makes trying to figure out what is going on in this world through his eyes even more interesting. Kaaro does not spare himself from moral outrage--he is a thief and something of a scoundrel by his own telling. I see just a little bit of the protagonist from Camus' The Stranger in Kaaro. He seems disconnected and distanced from his own behavior and emotions, and so does not understand why he does what he does.
The bouncing around the timeline that the story does usually works, but sometimes got me a bit lost. I was motivated to try to keep up. Thompson is good at distributing little tidbits about Nigerian culture as explanation for a particular behavior without doing lots of exposition.
The ending has lots of possibilities for new directions for the series. It does not appear that he is going to tell the same story again. I am definitely going to read the rest.
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