T. J. Young & the Orishas 1 by Antoine Bandele
Hello Books Lovers,
some time ago I requested this title on Netgalley, T. J. Young & the Orishas 1, The gatekeeper’s staff by Antoine Bandele, and they kindly granted me the audiobook. T. J. Young’s was actually my first ever audiobook and I must say that, apart from the hours it took me to complete it, I was very satisfied.
I have to congratulate the narrator, Nekia Renee, who was able to change her attitude, tone of voice, and narrative pace, where necessary. Although she was the same person doing the various voices, whenever she was a different character speaking I could guess who they were most of the time because Nekia was able to stay consistent with the intonations of the various characters. And another point in her favor was the ability to be able to use different accents – Nigerian, French, Spanish – really, really good.
As I said it was my first audiobook, in English, and at the beginning I was a little scared because I wasn’t sure I would be able to follow the whole story, but this one by TJ Young was an adventure with such a fast pace that I didn’t miss even a piece. Our protagonists are precisely TJ, Mannie, Ayodeji (forgive the transcription of the names, but being only audio I’m not sure how they are written), 15 year old kids who, to improve their skills given to them by the orisha, go to the camp Olosa , a summer camp located in the New Orleans bayou.
One thing you will notice if you decide to read it is that Antoine Bandale deals with African mythology, that of the Orisha, the same one addressed by Tomi Adeyemi in her books, in a very similar way to how Rick Riordan deals with the Greek one, with children, a field, and an adventure to save their way, but all done in an original way.
T. J. Young did not know he had abilities before his sister’s death, but then, at her funeral, after touching her staff, he discovers his abilities, abilities of which no one yet knows the great potential. He goes to the camp where he will not have an easy time because the others are much better than him and after the first week, when the progress scores are published, what he would like to do is retire and go home.
T. J. is not as good as his sister, he is not as good as any of them. He still doesn’t even know which Orisha his powers derive from, but he’s a smart boy, and soon discovers things that, despite his poor skills, he will have to solve for himself. He sets out on a journey, if that can be called so, that he could never have faced without his friends’ help.
He discovers a lot of things. People he trusted are traitors, a friend of him turns out to be something else, – a detail you’ll understand while reading long before the actual revelation – and a bully ends up on his side. Throughout the book there will be a lot of changes, the characters will grow up and great responsibilities will fall on their shoulders. Now T. J. has one year to prevent a major disaster from happening.
The writing was very smooth. The only negative point I find in audiobooks is that personally I can not start doing anything else that I end up distracting myself and losing pieces of the narration, otherwise everything was well done, even the file, with the subdivision of the chapters, and the best part were the very interesting and significant sound effects at the beginning and end of the chapters. Thanks again IBPA for the opportunity to read this book, now I’m looking forward to the second one.
