Category: Book Reviews

Book Reviews, Flora Nwapa

Women Are Different by Flora Nwapa

by Darkowaa10 Comments on Women Are Different by Flora Nwapa

Date Read: June 10th 2014

Published: 1992

Publisher: Africa World Press (African Women Writers Series)

Pages: 138

The Blurb

Women are Different is the moving story of a group of Nigerian women, from their schooldays together through the trials and tribulations of their adult lives. Through their stories we see some of the universal problems faced by women everywhere: the struggle for financial independence and a rewarding career, combined with the need to bring up a family, often without a man.

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Review – ★★ (2 stars)

This book was quite painful to read… the details of the storyline were superfluous, Nwapa’s writing style wasn’t great and there were too many characters to keep track of in the book. Furthermore, there were spelling and grammatical errors in my copy of the book (I have the African Women Writer Series- First Africa World Press, edition 1992).

I love that Flora Nwapa sought out to enlighten readers on the lives of Nigerian women from the 1940’s to the 1970’s- after the Biafran war, but I did not enjoy the writing style. It was written in third-person, but quite shabbily. The sentence structures were very simple and I felt like I was reading a child’s novel.

I will commend Nwapa for raising various issues women faced in Nigeria, like: arranged marriages, child marriages, poverty, the importance of girl-child education, prostitution, spinsterhood, betrayed love etc. Nwapa portrayed all of these issues through the lives of Dora, Rose, Agnes and Comfort from their high school days to their late motherhood days. The girls’ different personalities and opinions on life were basically a microcosm of the opinions and lives of other women in Nigeria. I enjoyed Comfort’s character the most, as she was vivacious and fearless- typical of Nigerian women!

But several parts of the novel were dragged out. For example: the food strike in the girls’ secondary school went on for about ten pages; Dora complaining to Rose about her wayward daughter’s failed marriage dragged on for another ten pages; Agnes’ prostitute daughter’s plight went on forever as well.

The girls’ lives did not end up how they wished it would romantically, but they were quite successful, strong women by the end of the novel.

I initially wanted to purchase Nwapa’s popular novel, Efuru but after reading this simple book that took me 18 days to complete, I think I will pass. I love African literature and I admire Flora Nwapa for being one of the pioneering African women writers, but unfortunately I do not recommend this book.

BUT!! Another African literature book blogger, Mary Okeke, loved this novel! Check out her positive review of Women Are Different – here.

★★ (2 stars) – Thumbs down. I do not recommend this.

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Ayesha H. Attah, Book Reviews

Harmattan Rain by Ayesha H. Attah

by Darkowaa7 Comments on Harmattan Rain by Ayesha H. Attah

Date Read: February 10th 2014

Published: 2008

Publisher: PER ANKH

Pages: 434

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The Blurb

Harmattan Rain follows three generations of women as they cope with family, love and life. A few years before Ghana’s independence, Lizzie-Achiaa’s lover disappears. Intent on finding him, she runs away from home. Akua Afriyie, Lizzie-Achiaa’s first daughter, strikes out on her own as a single parent in a country rocked by successive coups. Her daughter, Sugri grows up overprotected. She leaves home for university in New York, where she learns that sometimes one can have too much freedom. In the end, the secrets parents keep from their children eventually catch up with them

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Review – ★★★★ (4 stars)

Once I finally gave this book a chance, I really enjoyed it! I started Harmattan Rain in October of 2013, but put it down after reading 30 pages or so. I found the beginning a bit slow so I just took a break and came back to it in February.

Harmattan Rain focuses on three generations of Ghanaian women in a family: Lizzie-Achiaa, Akua Afriyie and Sugri. Readers experience Ghana (mostly the capital, Accra) through these characters from 1954- before independence, to the early 2000’s. We learn about Ghana’s political unrest during the coup d’etat era and witness the evolution of Ghanaian politics. Ayesha Harruna Attah does a great job of weaving Ghana’s history into the storyline in a simple, clear way, without being politically biased.

The novel is divided into three parts, so readers have the opportunity to delve deep into the lives of each character and their storyline. Ayesha Harruna Attah effortlessly develops each character and their storyline to the point where all three storylines are meshed together perfectly. As the novel takes us from one generation to the next, readers witness family cycles, past mistakes and habits continuing. It was refreshing to go through the realistic ups and downs of these ladies’ lives: Lizzie-Achiaa- the brave matriarch of the family runs away from her village to find her lost lover and also tries to pursue her nursing career in Accra; Akua Afriyie- Lizzie’s rebellious first child struggles with being a single parent and strives to find happiness through her art; Sugri- Akua Afriyie’s only daughter, a brilliant but sheltered girl, learns hard lessons of life as she goes away to college in the US.

My favorite part of the novel is part three, which focuses on Sugri. I could identify with Sugri more, as she attended an international high school, went to university abroad and experienced being ‘different’ outside of Ghana. She may be a little naive, but her growth and strength by the end of the novel was inspiring! Ayesha Harruna Attah seems to be a shy person from some interviews I’ve seen, so I was pleasantly surprised when I was reading this book because she’s a powerful writer with an unexpected creative imagination. Harmattan Rain is a great debut for Ayesha Harruna Attah and I can’t wait to read her next novel!

Check out a sneak peek of her second novel, Saturday’s Shadows to be launched this Fall – here!

★★★★ (4 stars) – Great book. Highly recommend!

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Binyavanga Wainaina, Book Reviews

One Day I Will Write About This Place: A Memoir by Binyavanga Wainaina

by Darkowaa6 Comments on One Day I Will Write About This Place: A Memoir by Binyavanga Wainaina

Date Read: April 16th 2014

Published: 2011

Publisher: Graywolf Press

Pages: 272

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 The Blurb 

Binyavanga Wainaina tumbled through his middle-class Kenyan childhood out of kilter with the world around him. This world came to him as a chaos of loud and colorful sounds: the hair dryers at his mother’s beauty parlor, black mamba bicycle bells, mechanics in Nairobi, the music of Michael Jackson—all punctuated by the infectious laughter of his brother and sister, Jimmy and Ciru. He could fall in with their patterns, but it would take him a while to carve out his own.

In this vivid and compelling debut memoir, Wainaina takes us through his school days, his mother’s religious period, his failed attempt to study in South Africa as a computer programmer, a moving family reunion in Uganda, and his travels around Kenya. The landscape in front of him always claims his main attention, but he also evokes the shifting political scene that unsettles his views on family, tribe, and nationhood.

Throughout, reading is his refuge and his solace. And when, in 2002, a writing prize comes through, the door is opened for him to pursue the career that perhaps had been beckoning all along. A series of fascinating international reporting assignments follow. Finally he circles back to a Kenya in the throes of post-election violence and finds he is not the only one questioning the old certainties.

Resolutely avoiding stereotype and cliché, Wainaina paints every scene in One Day I Will Write About This Place with a highly distinctive and hugely memorable brush.

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Review – ★★★★★ (5 stars)

This is an amazing memoir. I loved every bit of it!! I’ve watched and listened to several interviews featuring Wainaina, so when I was reading this book I read it in his voice and it made my reading experience even more enjoyable! I loved how Wainaina took us through his life as a child, his secondary school years, university life to present day. I loved how he portrayed his relationship with his sister- Ciru to the point where I almost thought they were twins. I loved the grace of his mother. I appreciated the struggles he faced in finding himself while in university in South Africa. I loved the way he played with sounds and words throughout the book – ‘kimay’! I loved the pop culture references – from Lauryn Hill’s afro, to OutKast’s wardrobe, Lionel Richie’s teeth and Brenda Fassie’s tumultuous spotlight in the media.

Before reading One Day I Will Write About This Place, I scanned through Goodreads reviews and saw that readers found the memoir a bit choppy and overall, not an enjoyable read. In the beginning of the memoir, the writing style may seem ‘choppy’ because we are encountering the young, immature, happy-go-lucky, very jovial Binyavanga. The ‘choppy’ writing style is only symbolic, as we read through the mind of a young, somewhat scatter-brain, privileged boy who just enjoyed reading books, imagining random patterns in the sky and day-dreaming. Which youngster isn’t like this anyway? This memoir is anything but ‘choppy’ and once readers get passed encountering Wainaina’s hilarious boyhood antics, the reading experience gets better with every page.

I learned a lot about Kenya and the ethnic group issues they face, especially during election times. It was familiar to me, as Ghana and other African nations unfortunately face similar ethnic group discrimination as well. Overall, it was refreshing to learn about Kenya from a middle-class, male standpoint, instead of the village life stories many African novels are based on.

One Day I Will Write About This Place is an overall insightful, hilarious book. My love for Wainaina grew after he came out to the world earlier this year as being homosexual. I was proud of him, as one must live their truth! Wainaina was also recently honored in Times Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

In January 2014, Wainaina wrote a Lost Chapter from One Day I Will Write About This Place which is an essay where he tells his mother he is a homosexual. Check it out on Africa Is A Country – here.

★★★★★ (5 stars) – Amazing book, I loved it. Absolutely recommend!


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Book Reviews, Teju Cole

Every Day Is For The Thief by Teju Cole

by Darkowaa3 Comments on Every Day Is For The Thief by Teju Cole

Date Read: June 26th 2014

Published: March 25th 2014 (originally published in Nigeria by Cassava Republic Press in 2007)

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

Pages: 176

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The Blurb

A young Nigerian living in New York City goes home to Lagos for a short visit, finding a city both familiar and strange. In a city dense with story, the unnamed narrator moves through a mosaic of life, hoping to find inspiration for his own. He witnesses the “yahoo yahoo” diligently perpetrating email frauds from an Internet café, longs after a mysterious woman reading on a public bus who disembarks and disappears into a bookless crowd, and recalls the tragic fate of an eleven-year-old boy accused of stealing at a local market. 

Along the way, the man reconnects with old friends, a former girlfriend, and extended family, taps into the energies of Lagos life—creative, malevolent, ambiguous—and slowly begins to reconcile the profound changes that have taken place in his country and the truth about himself.
In spare, precise prose that sees humanity everywhere, interwoven with original photos by the author, Every Day Is For The Thief is a wholly original amalgamation of fiction, memory, art, and travel writing. Originally published in Nigeria in 2007, this revised and updated edition is the first time this unique book has been available outside Africa. You’ve never read a book like Every Day Is For The Thief because no one writes like Teju Cole.

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 Review – ★★★★ (4 stars)

“Every day is for the thief, but one day is for the owner” is a Yoruba proverb that Teju Cole adopted to capture the essence of this travelogue, Every Day Is For The Thief. The protagonist of this travelogue is a Nigerian born, now naturalized American psychiatry student who lives in New York. His calm demeanor gives the book a progressive, logical flow as readers hear his thoughts. I actually read the book thinking the protagonist was Teju Cole himself… just because readers are not given much detail on the protagonist- like his name, his stature or his age. Since the novel isn’t plot driven, each chapter is a vignette where the nameless protagonist discusses different experiences of his trip to Lagos during his Christmas vacation.

A lot of the Nigerian experiences and adventures Cole writes about are common in Ghana, but not as severe! The corruption heavily practiced by the police, the hustle and bustle of the city with zooming okadas (motorcycles) on pot-holed roads, the regular power outages, the wide social and economic disparities and increased armed robbery cases in the suffering economy are all prevalent in Ghana as well.

Certain parts of the book wowed me: the widespread of internet frauds conducted in Internet cafes by ‘yahoo yahoo’ boys, the burning of a child thief in a car tire, the gangs that roam the streets of Lagos demanding thousands of naira while being ever-ready to maim citizens were pretty wild! These incidents may seem exaggerated and fictitious but I believe these things actually occur in Lagos, since I’ve heard similar stories from some Nigerian friends. After reading this novel, non-Nigerians may think twice before visiting Lagos because it was written as if Nigerians are always living on the edge of danger!

I loved how the protagonist was a ‘returnee’ as he had been away from Lagos for fifteen years. He sort of returned to Lagos as a stranger with his assimilated Western ways (of democracy). This allowed him to share his shock in the craziness and delight in being back home with a wide array of readers- both foreign and fellow Africans. The protagonist’s fluid identity will help readers unfamiliar with Nigeria to take in Lagos from an insider, yet outsiders’ lens.

This is a suitable book for anyone who would love to learn about the rambunctious nation of Nigeria! Teju Cole expertly discusses and simplifies some of the complex issues the country faces such as corruption, government issues, the oil sector, the health sector etc. Some people may be even more apprehensive about visiting the nation after reading jaw-dropping descriptions, but I’m still keen on visiting Nigeria- Abuja to be precise!

★★★★ (4 stars) – Great book. Highly recommend!

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Book Reviews, E.C Osondu

Voice of America: Stories by E.C Osondu

by Darkowaa2 Comments on Voice of America: Stories by E.C Osondu

Date Read: April 30th 2014

Published: October 25th 2011

Publisher: Harper Perennial

Pages: 216

VOA

The Blurb

E.C. Osondu is a fearless and passionate new writer whose stories echo the joys and struggles of a cruel, beautiful world. His characters burst from the page—they fight, beg, love, grieve, but ultimately they are dreamers. Set in Nigeria and the United States, Voice of America moves from the fears and dreams of boys and girls in villages and refugee camps to the disillusionment and confusion of young married couples living in America, and then back to bustling Lagos.
Written with exhilarating energy and warmth, the stories of Voice of America are full of humor, pathos, and wisdom—an electrifying debut from a winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing.

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Review – ★★ (2 stars)

I bought Voice of America: Stories because Osondu’s story “Waiting” won the Caine Prize in 2009 and I found it very touching. I wanted to read more of his work and I’m satisfied with my overall reading experience of this book.

But most of the short stories (set in both USA and Nigeria) were lackluster. I found issues like childless marriages, arranged marriages, kidnappings and fraud cliché with the plethora of African novels on the market on immigrant experience in the West. I’m used to short stories being extraordinary, shocking, disheartening, exhilarating- not simply okay, as with this collection of short stories.

My favorite story was:

“A Letter From Home”- a hilarious letter that a nagging Nigerian mother writes to her adult son in the United States, demanding extra monetary support and discussing the future bride she found for him.

Other stories had hilarious bits as well, but were still quite lackluster for me. Voice of America: Stories is a pleasant read, but not on my highly recommended list.

★★ (2 stars) – Thumbs down. I do not recommend this.

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Book Reviews, Jamaica Kincaid

Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid

by Darkowaa9 Comments on Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid

Date Read: May 22nd 2014

Published: September 4th 2002

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Pages: 164

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The Blurb

Lucy, a teenage girl from the West Indies, comes to North America to work as an au pair for Lewis and Mariah and their four children. Lewis and Mariah are a thrice-blessed couple–handsome, rich, and seemingly happy. Yet, almost at once, Lucy begins to notice cracks in their beautiful facade. With mingled anger and compassion, Lucy scrutinizes the assumptions and verities of her employers’ world and compares them with the vivid realities of her native place. Lucy has no illusions about her own past, but neither is she prepared to be deceived about where she presently is.
At the same time that Lucy is coming to terms with Lewis’s and Mariah’s lives, she is also unravelling the mysteries of her own sexuality. Gradually a new person unfolds: passionate, forthright, and disarmingly honest. In Lucy, Jamaica Kincaid has created a startling new character possessed with adamantine nearsightedness and ferocious integrity–a captivating heroine for our time.

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Review –  ★★★★★ (5 stars)

Lucy is a quick read and was wonderfully written. I really enjoy Jamaica Kincaid’s style of writing – it is clean and simple yet laden with deep meaning. Lucy, the protagonist of the novel is a sorrowful, bitter person and I blame her abandoned upbringing and the love-hate relationship she has with her mother as the cause. The novel in general is full of misery – not only from the protagonist, but also from the family Lucy is working for (Mariah and Lewis).

Even after Lucy obtains all the things she once longed for – freedom to do as she pleases and to be away from home (a nameless Caribbean island) she still isn’t fully satisfied with life. The bond she forms with her friend Peggy and her romantic relationships with men don’t seem completely sincere in love. There is a deep void in Lucy’s life and I believe only her mother’s love can fill it but her mother was quite controlling and hostile to Lucy as a child. What kind of mother tells her daughter that she was named after Satan because she was a botheration from the moment she was conceived? And that ‘Lucy’ is the girl’s name for Lucifer? Crazy.

 This story could be seen as a sequel to Jamaica Kincaid’s novel, Annie John. There are a lot of similarities in the protagonists of the two stories. Kincaid seems to enjoy writing on mother-daughter relationships in these two novels… and they are both quite tragic! Kincaid’s ability to articulate emotions and feelings of joy, vulnerability, sorrow, pain and grief are very palpable in her novels. This is why I love her books and I highly recommend this one!

★★★★★ (5 stars) – Amazing book, I loved it. Absolutely recommend!

Purchase Lucy on Amazon

Book Reviews, Chimamanda N. Adichie

The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

by Darkowaa8 Comments on The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Date Read: April 2nd 2014

Published: June 1st 2010

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Pages: 240

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 The Blurb

In “A Private Experience,” a medical student hides from a violent riot with a poor Muslim woman whose dignity and faith force her to confront the realities and fears she’s been pushing away. In “Tomorrow is Too Far,” a woman unlocks the devastating secret that surrounds her brother’s death. The young mother at the center of “Imitation” finds her comfortable life in Philadelphia threatened when she learns that her husband has moved his mistress into their Lagos home. And the title story depicts the choking loneliness of a Nigerian girl who moves to an America that turns out to be nothing like the country she expected; though falling in love brings her desires nearly within reach, a death in her homeland forces her to reexamine them.

Searing and profound, suffused with beauty, sorrow, and longing, these stories map, with Adichie’s signature emotional wisdom, the collision of two cultures and the deeply human struggle to reconcile them. The Thing Around Your Neck is a resounding confirmation of the prodigious literary powers of one of our most essential writers.

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Review – ★★★★ (4 stars)

The Thing Around Your Neck is a pretty good collection of twelve short stories and a fast read. Adichie manifests her effortless artistry with words and I enjoyed the stories- hence my rating of 4 stars. Since most of my life experiences are American and Ghanaian, I could relate to a good number of the stories, as they are set in the US and Nigeria (Ghana’s anglophone West African brother nation).

But I was dissatisfied at how most of the stories had weak conclusions. I’ve read other short story collections and enjoyed them more, such as Happiness, Like Water by Chinelo Okparanta. Despite my slight disappointment, my favorite stories were:

“A Private Experience” – a touching tale of two young women from different religious backgrounds who take temporary refuge in an empty shop during a riot in Kano, Nigeria.

“The Shivering” – a modern story set on the Princeton University campus where two African students form a strong friendship, despite their different beliefs and sexualities.

“The American Embassy” – a disheartening tale of a woman trying to seek asylum in America after witnessing the murder of her baby son by armed robbers.

The rest of the stories were good, but again, their conclusions were not that great to me. Also, because I read Americanah before this book (in October 2013), I found some of the characters from both novels a bit similar.

My favorite quotes from The Thing Around Your Neck:

 “It is one of the things she has come to love about America, the abundance of unreasonable hope.” pg. 26

 “She dated married men before Obiora- what single girl in Lagos hadn’t?” pg. 31

 “I remember now that I once saw you on the shuttle. I knew you were African but I thought you might be from Ghana. You looked too gentle to be Nigerian.” pg. 151 (Hahaa!)

“I was happy when I saw your picture…you were light-skinned. I had to think about my children’s looks. Light-skinned blacks fare better in America.” pg. 185

 I could discuss these quotes till Thy kingdom come. There’s so much to analyze from them to keep a conversation going for a while!

★★★★ (4 stars) – Great book. Highly recommend!

Purchase The Thing Around Your Neck on Amazon

Book Reviews, Buchi Emecheta

The Bride Price by Buchi Emecheta

by Darkowaa5 Comments on The Bride Price by Buchi Emecheta

Date Read: March 21st 2014

Published: 1995

Publisher: Heinemann (African Writers Series)

Pages: 180

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The Blurb

‘Always remember that you are mine,’ says Aku-nna’s father before he dies. But as Aku-nna approaches womanhood her ambitious uncle makes plans to marry her off for a high bride price. Caught in a web of tradition, lust and greed, Aku-nna falls for the one young man she is forbidden to love.

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 Review –  ★★★★ (4 stars)

The Bride Price was a bittersweet read for me. The story is about a girl named Aku-nna who lived a fairly comfortable life in the city of Lagos, Nigeria with her family. But after the sudden death of her father, her family moves to their hometown, a village called Ibuza. Life is very different for Aku-nna in her hometown: by tradition, her mother has to marry her uncle (her father’s oldest brother), her education isn’t seen as a priority, she becomes an introvert, village life is quite mundane and her uncle plans on gaining a large sum of money from her bride price. Aku-nna’s uncle already makes plans to marry her off to the highest bidder once she reaches womanhood, but Aku-nna simply desires to finish her secondary school education, become a teacher and marry the man she falls in love with. Once Aku-nna starts school, she falls in love with one of her teachers, Chike. Aku-nna and Chike keep their love secret, because their love is forbidden in Ibuza. Chike is from a family whose descendants were once slaves hence making him ‘unfit’ to marry Aku-nna according to her family (who are descendants of a noble family).

Old traditions and new missionary ways of life are constantly interrupting Aku-nna and her quiet, confused spirit. Buchi Emecheta portrays the struggles of Nigerian women during colonial times. The roles of the women during this time were very different from the roles of women in Nigeria today. From the novel, women during these days were imprisoned in traditional norms: they were meant to serve their husbands, bear children (preferably sons) and have little say in family affairs.

Since this story occurs during the colonial times of Nigeria it is characteristic that the men in the story dictate the course of Aku-nna’s life. Her schooling, the people she interacts with, her chores at home and who she marries are all controlled by her uncle. If Aku-nna rebels and marries Chike, her life could be in danger, because her acting father must accept her bride price. If the bride price is not accepted and she elopes, it is believed that she would not live to raise her children – this is an old taboo known to Ibuza.

“If a girl wished to live long and see her children’s children, she must accept the husband chosen for her by her people, and the bride price must be paid. If the bride price was not paid, she would never survive the birth of her first child” (pg. 176).

Aku-nna’s life is more or less dependent on her greedy uncle’s need for a high bride price since old traditions require women to have no say in their future marital affairs and superstitious beliefs seem to rule their lives.

Emecheta’s brilliant style of writing and the traditional proverbs she uses allow readers sympathize with Aku-nna and her predicament of being in love with a ‘slave’ and having to marry a man she would never love. This is a classic love story and Emecheta writes about it passionately to the point where her words hold your emotions. The ending of the story was quite shocking and actually had a psychological hold on me for a while. I did not give the book 5 stars because some parts of the story were a bit dragged out due to excessive description. Also, it was a hopeful, yet sad love story to me… I felt hurt by the end! Emecheta seems to like to write on depressing issues because I hear her novel The Joys of Motherhood is also quite blue. Nevertheless, this was a great novel and I loved learning about the roles of Nigerian women and the traditions of the people in Ibuza during the pre-independence era.

★★★★ (4 stars) – Great book. Highly recommend!

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