This is a definite step beyond the first installment, even if the series still feels too serial for what a novel should be.

The title is literal as Binti heads home from the Oozma Uni, where she has spent a year studying more math and trying to figure out her ancient artifact/toy. I am too dumb to understand any of the equations or theorems present in these books, and thankfully there aren't many, but I fully believe that Okorafor could be pulling the wool over our eyes and making up stuff (this is fantasy after all). Do I think she is? No. I am guessing her maths are spot on. She uses mathematics as most authors would use magic, and maybe that is the point of my own misunderstanding. When she performs what she calls treeing, I see it as a wizard state. She is able to summon some kind of electrical current using math (at least I think that is what she is doing), but this is a society set far enough into the future that who knows what humans could really do? That she is barely human at this point in the series only adds to her mystique.

I will definitely be finishing up this series because I want to know how this all ends, and as gross as I find some of the bio/cyber organisms, I also find them completely fascinating. I just wish Binti were one, larger book because I feel that breaking it up does damage to the overall plot.