Booktour: The Infinity Courts by Akemi Dawn Bowman

Eighteen-year-old Nami Miyamoto is certain her life is just beginning. She has a great family, just graduated high school, and is on her way to a party where her entire class is waiting for her—including, most importantly, the boy she’s been in love with for years.

The only problem? She’s murdered before she gets there.

When Nami wakes up, she learns she’s in a place called Infinity, where human consciousness goes when physical bodies die. She quickly discovers that Ophelia, a virtual assistant widely used by humans on Earth, has taken over the afterlife and is now posing as a queen, forcing humans into servitude the way she’d been forced to serve in the real world. Even worse, Ophelia is inching closer and closer to accomplishing her grand plans of eradicating human existence once and for all.

As Nami works with a team of rebels to bring down Ophelia and save the humans under her imprisonment, she is forced to reckon with her past, her future, and what it is that truly makes us human.

From award-winning author Akemi Dawn Bowman comes an incisive, action-packed tale that explores big questions about technology, grief, love, and humanity.

Big thank you to Turn The Pages Tours, the publisher, and the author for this advanced reading copy in exchange for my honest opinion during the blog tour.

The Infinity Courts by Akemi Dawn Bowman has been on my TBR ever since it was announced. As a biracial woman with a heavy interest in Japan, Nami interested me a lot, for several reasons. So when Turn The Pages Tours put out the call for book bloggers to join the tour, I didn’t hesitate for a second.

The opening sets the tone, but it’s quickly changed. The quick, nerdy references soon make place for internal dialogue, morals, and ethics. Nami has to make choices she never expected to make, especially not at her age. Everyone around her tells her what she needs to see, but she wants to follow her own path. This is the thing I love most about her. She wants to see the good, hope, and love, even in a world where war, hate, and submission rule daily life.

The world the author created is beautiful and scary at the same time. It’s a dystopian setting where beauty and pain are divided by a very thin line. I want to see more of it, but at the same time, I’m afraid to see all of its ugliness. You can’t help to root for Nami and her friends, to see this world changed, and see what it can become.

One thing not everyone may like is the pacing. There is a lot of internal monologue from Nami which slows down the pace. I think this is necessary to follow the changes she goes through, but if you want an action-packed novel, you better look elsewhere. This is a novel that’ll make you think about a multitude of things, about humanity, and the ‘other’. You’ll start wondering about your own morals and ethics. What would you do in Nami’s position?

I give The Infinity Courts five stars. For me, a good book makes you think, a great book makes you feel. The Infinity Courts made me think and feel. I can’t wait to dive back in and see what Nami does next.