Review: Beasts of Prey

I was first introduced to author Ayana Gray and her debut fantasy book Beasts of Prey during a San Diego Comic-con At Home panel. Intrigued, I looked up Beasts of Prey and that cover! Wow! I immediately put in for a request at my library and devoured this book in just a few days.

Beasts of Prey follows Koffi and Ekon, two very different teens in the city of Lkossa. Koffi is an indentured servant to the Night Zoo, a place of wonder where all manner of creature can be found. Ekon is training to become a Son of the Six, an elite warrior class that serves the six gods and goddesses of Lkossa. Normally, Koffi and Ekon would never meet, but after they both survive an encounter with the deadly Shetani, a demon beast plaguing the city, they are thrust together on a mission to capture the creature—Koffi to earn her freedom from the Night Zoo, and Ekon to secure his position as a Son of the Six. But the hunt for the Shetani leads the teens into the Greater Jungle, a place of danger, splendor, and secrets.

I read Beasts of Prey right after plowing through an adult sci-fi series, and my original plan was to use it as a palette cleanser. However, only a few pages into Beasts of Prey proved to me that this book was going to be more than an in-betweener; it was going to be a page-turning adventure! Gray provides her readers with a new take on the fantasy genre and a rather stellar presentation of characters.

Gray describes her book as Pan-African fantasy. She has taken inspiration for her work from cultures all across the African continent and its history. I personally loved this aspect of the book from page one. Fantasy has been stuck in the white, European, medieval, slap a wizard in a forest and call it magic, blah blah zone for a long time. Gray provides us a different take on the genre. The fact that she pulls from many different real-world cultures and histories creates a varied world that does feel very fantastic. To me, it felt like the coming together of a thousand different myths to make something totally new and fresh and mind-blowing. The fantastic permeates all levels of society in this book. Social politics, economics, religion, gender politics. Even the flora and fauna of Lkossa are touched by the fantasy that Gray has created. There is something new on every page. Additionally, that Gray rooted her fantasy mythology in Pan-African culture provides a grounding, common root for her world. I’ve seen examples of literature where authors try to pull from many different cultures across many different continents to create a new world. Sometimes it works, but often it ends up a cacophony of different real-world triggers that creates messy, non-immersive worldbuilding. Gray, by keeping her mythos to the continent of Africa, unites the layers of her world with a foundation a reader can firmly stand on as each new aspect of the world is introduced to them. It creates a more stable read without losing the sense of wonder that fantasy brings to the table.

In addition to an amazing world, Gray also presents some pretty great characters. I love Koffi, and I am always willing to back up representation of strong female leads, but I actually want to highlight Ekon in this review. Ekon is the type of representation young men in our world need. Ekon is intelligent and kind and unsure and emotional and humble and brave. He is, essentially, everything toxic masculinity is not. It is so very rare to see a boy in young adult literature this way. Too often I see boy character arcs that grow them into toxic masculinity, destroying the qualities that make them excellent human beings in the process. The shy baker’s son turning into the hardened warrior. The booksmart teen going on an adventure to become a ruthless king. Essentially, those books are telling our young men to put down the book, stop feeling your feelings, and start stabbing things until you get your way. Ekon, too, brushes up against this false ideal. He wants to become a Son of the Six, a warrior. This will earn him status and respect among the people of Lkossa, and, as he puts it, make him a man. But I love that Gray slowly dismantles this thinking throughout Ekon’s journey. She shows Ekon and the young men reading this book that there is an alternative to toxic masculinity, that their emotions are not weaknesses, that books are awesome, and fighting isn’t the only way to win. The YA genre, the fantasy genre, all of literature and the world we live in, has been waiting to hear this message. I believe Gray’s work with her characters, specifically her male characters, will go a long way in the fight to end toxic masculinity, and I commend her for her work.

Beasts of Prey isn’t without its faults. Some of the lessons and themes are a little overt, to the point of characters actually speaking them aloud in dialogue. I found that a little awkward and strained, especially given the context some of those thematic revelations came in. Additionally, there was unfortunately very little payoff for the promises made in the book. The Night Zoo, for all it is a fantastic place and one of the cornerstones of how this book was marketed to me, plays a very small role in the grand scheme of the story, which was a bummer. I also expected much more from the Greater Jungle than what I got, and I wanted to see more of Adiah’s chapters to fully cement her character before some of the high points in her arc. This book is also very much a first book in a series. Normally, I don’t mind cliffhanger endings, but with the minimal payout received from the book overall, I think the cliffhanger did not hit with that punch to want more, but rather a twinge at being yet another unsatisfactory reveal.

Overall, I enjoyed the read. I blasted through it, reading one hundred pages at a time because there was always something new on each page. I encourage everyone to pick it up and give it a read. There is some beautiful descriptive prose in there, and I think it is a prime example of how we should all strive to represent our male characters to the boys/men in our lives. I will be on the lookout for book 2, but until then I will continue to gaze in total admiration at the cover art for Beasts of Prey.

(Seriously! This is one of the best covers I’ve seen all year!)

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• Title: Beasts of Prey
• Author: Ayana Gray
• Publisher: Penguin Random House
• Year: 2021
• Genre: Pan-African Fantasy
• Age Range: Young Adult

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Learn more about Ayana Gray HERE

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