Read This Book: THE CHANGING MAN by Tomi Oyemakinde

Ife doesn’t like her new, posh boarding school, but when she wins a place and a chance to secure a sponsor to fund her education at university, she can’t refuse. But the people are stuck up, some fellow students seem out to get her, and a recent disappearance has Ife on edge. When one of her fellow Black students changes dramatically, Ife begins to wonder if the school’s urban legend about the Changing Man is true — and when she begins to probe at the mystery, what she finds is truly terrifying.

I was really intrigued by the setup of this book and the details that made the Changing Man so shiver-inducing. He comes at night, he has magenta eyes, and he leaves the smell of wet pavement wherever he goes. The menace of this story lingers in the background at first as Ife goes about her day, trying to keep her head up and not get ground down by the oppressive rules and classism that are rife at the school.

The more obvious horror of her day-to-day life is the unfair way she’s treated by the white teachers at her school and their contempt for her presence among them. Ife doesn’t always treat her fellow classmates the best in her desperate attempt to stay connected to her old life, and she seems oblivious to the ways that she shuts out another student, Bijal, also hoping for connection amidst the tough and pressurized academic setting. Her actions feel immature but realistic, and as she slowly becomes more aware of the danger of the Changing Man —who is very real but not at all what she imagines — Ife learns that the only way to survive at Nithercott is to embrace the friendships she’s been resisting.

This story has some tense moments and high stakes, and the Changing Man legend had some nice twists that I didn’t see coming. Definitely pick this one up if you want a dark academia read with a supernatural bent!