The Shadow Speaker

Shadow Speaker is the first book in a YA duology set in a future Africa where "peace bombs" have given people magic powers and changed the world in unexpected ways. Forests grow spontaneously, some tech has stopped working, other worlds are slowly merging into earth, plants are carnivorous, sentient whirlwinds attack people in the desert, and travelling alone has become especially dangerous.

I enjoyed reading this especially for the worldbuilding ideas, but it is also a YA travel romp--new places and people were constantly being introduced and I lost any greater sense of foreshadowing or closure as everything new and shiny shallowly whirled by. I'm interested to see where the second book's different perspective goes and if it can build a story that I find more satisfying on the grounds that the first one established.