Noor, by Nnedi Okorafor

I've read the Binti series by Okorafor, and I'd say in this one that she is getting better as a writer (particularly in speculation) but the plot may not live up to her skills. AO is a woman with severe disabilities and has chosen heavy assistive body modifications to be able to live a normal life. This puts her into an oppressed category, and drives the story. Her Nigeria is a dystopian place pretty directly extrapolated from today--corporate exploitation and disinformation are her major obstacles. Ultimate Corporation is pretty much Nigerian Amazon.

I'm beginning to see the rationale for how Okorafor names her advanced technologies--an "anti-ajej" is a device for excluding sand from your immediate vicinity in a sandstorm. In traditional SF spaces you'd call it a force field, but that brings to mind a lot of colonial-military SF imagery that she avoids with her terminology.

An interesting take with this book and Who Fears Death (the first of hers I read) is that they both feature protagonists that are deeply unwanted babies. In Who Fears Death it is directly stated that the mother would never consider abortion, but not in Noor. Instead the parents pray for her death in the womb and later publicly denounce her augmentation and her association with Fulani herdsman DNA. It's an argument against abortion but sort of for it at the same time.

The ending is disappointing, either through not enough explanation or understanding. I'd call this one a case of growing pains.