Nothing comes close by Tolulope Popoola

 I read this book on a whim. I abandoned Noo Saro-Wiwa's book because for whatever reason I just never really got into it but as I am currently preparing to spend 9 months doing field work in Nigeria I will come back to it later and see if it takes my fancy while I discover Abuja, Calabar and Lagos.

I saw the book Nothing comes close by Tolulope Popoola in the November issue of Pride Magazine and randomly one day decided that whilst life has kept me insanely busy,  I have missed the joy and excitement that I get from a new book (no am not sad, I just like to read) so I went to the iBooks store and bought it for £1.99. I have made a mental note to buy a hardcopy because its like one of those feel-good-movies you watch that makes you smile and you just want in your dvd collection even though you know you will probably never watch it again.

I am going to start with the end. As cheesy and as predictable as the ending was, I found myself grinning like a cheshire cat and squealing. I mean really it was like a good rom-com,well... a rom-com with a murder, husband-snatching, angry wife, two break-ups, the birth of a child, one untimely arrest, two make-ups, two shocking confessions of the past, one proposal, one wedding, mother-inlaw issues. Ok, so maybe a little less like a rom-com and more like a romatic drama. Nevertheless, the book chronicles the relationship of blunt, no-nosense taking Lola (so she liked to think) and the mysterious Wole: the man who claimed he could put an exact date on the day he decided to never tell a lie again (lool).  Both Lola and Wole had close knit friends who's story we got to hear a bit of from time to time. On Lola's end there was the wannabe fashion designer Maureen, the adventurous Temmy, the motherly Funmi and the in my opinion confused Titi. Wole had womanising Kene and his sensible brother Mark.

One of the things I really liked about this book was the dialogue. It was very relatable and real, although sometimes I did find myself thinking do people really talk like this? Do people actually call dj's fresh and begin conversations with their sisters by saying sister? Well I guess some do. I did also think that their lives were rather dramatic, I mean so much happened in the first two months of Lola and Wole's relationship but I guess that is what made it an interesting read. The book isn't stop your life and read it 247 amazing, but its a feel-good read that had me smiling at the end.

On to the next book. Not too sure what it will be but am thinking maybe The Street by Biyi Bandele or something by Lara Daniels if I can stomach another romantic drama.
Merry Christmas
Byyee

Night Dancer by Chika Unigwe

 I read Chika Unigwe's first book On Black Sisters Street a few years ago and it was an awesome read. I recommended it to several of my friends and those who actually read it loved it. So when I read in Pride Magazine that she had a new book, I went straight to Waterstones' website and ordered a copy. So here we go..

This book centres on a very dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship. Mma grew up with no family other than her mother Eze. She had no sense of who she was and where she came from. Her biggest issue though was that she didn’t know who her father was and when she asked Ezi she was given the same answer “You don’t have a father”, Ezi never explained further, was he dead? Alive? A dead-beat? A wife beater? One of the big men who used to spend the night and pay their rent? As a young girl Mma felt the you-don’t-have-a-father line that her mother fed her and all who asked deprived her of friends; no mother wanted their daughter to be seen with the fatherless girl who’s mother was well-to-do by no known means and who made no apology for her lack of a husband or a father for her child. As a young woman, no young man wanted to marry a fatherless girl from an unknown background with no family or male relatives to ask for her hand marriage. Needless to say, Mma grew up loathing her mother for all the things she felt Eze had deprived her of.

So here’s the story, Eze died leaving Mma with a very healthy inheritance, a bevy of unanswered questions and a handwritten copy of her memoirs. Why Eze could only tell Mma the truth about her past and her family in death baffles me, I mean I get that she was trying to protect Mma, but in so doing she kept Mma from the very thing that would set her free her and actually allow them to have a decent relationship, the truth. Anyway, Mma reluctantly read Eze’s memoirs and unearthed shocking, sad and painful secrets about the circumstances of her birth, the life her mother had left behind and the realisation that Eze had done everything in her power to give Mma a good life. Ezi’s memoirs led Mma to the family that she always yearned for. She found her grandfather who to her dismay expected her to apologise for her mother’s refusal to conform to cultural norms, which much like her mother made no sense to her. She found her father, the seemingly perfect man who judged others yet fell by the very same vice. She found Rapu the woman who was destined to be a blessing to her family yet did this by wrecking havoc on Ezi’s family and lived in the fear that Mma had returned to reclaim what rightfully belonged to herself and her mother.

Sadly, it was only in death that Mma learnt just who her mother was; a woman who refused to conform to the expectations of others and refused to be judged for the hand life had dealt her. Mma learnt to appreciate how much Eze had loved and sacrificed for her, but at this point Eze was already dead and buried.

On to the next book, Looking for Transwonderland. Travels in Nigeria  by Noo Saro-Wiwa. Do u recognise the name? She is the daughter of the Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa.
See you next month.
Byye

Open City by Teju Cole

I read Everyday is for the thief a few years ago and till date it is one of my best ever reads, so when I found out that Teju Cole had a new book, it was a no brainer. When I bought Open City, I was excited and full of expectations. I was ready for Teju Cole to take me on another amazing journey that I would talk about for ages. In short my expectations were through the roof.

I eagerly began to read and from the first chapter, I was thrown. It wasn’t what I was expecting. The detailed musings of Julius, the main character about the music of Otto Klemperer, Christa Ludwig and Mahler, about the paintings of deaf children by John Brewster seemed to me like a lesson in culture and art. It reminded me of a conversation with a wise and learned friend whom you sort of love and sort of dread talking to, because you know the conversation is going to end with you realising that there is much more to the world than what you see, you feel challenged and motivated to improve yourself yet at the same time it’s frustrating and you look at this person and think, “what are you on about?” That aside this booked touched on some very interesting issues: from global warming; to the Yoruba belief that people born with physical deformities are worshippers of Obatala; to 9/11; to brief mentions of some of the psychiatric patients Julius was treating. There were also snippets of Julius’ childhood in Nigeria and his subsequent disconnect from his family. It was actually an interesting read.

One of the things that I found unique about this book was the way it seemed to jump from one thought to another without any logical flow. At first it frustrated me, I wanted a plot, an interesting storyline. But after a while, I began to think that life doesn’t flow logically from one event to another and this book reads like the narrations of a person’s real life, like the pages of someone’s diary, like a reality book. Like instead of taking a camera crew and filming someone all day, Teju Cole decided to write. It made this book seem real.

The main character, Julius was an odd ball and if you read this book you will spend many a page with him walking through the streets of New York and Belgium with only his thoughts for company. He had no real connection to anyone apart from maybe his old professor. Don’t get me wrong there are some interesting characters in this book like Farouq the Moroccan with whom Julius discusses the fear of Islam, Palestinians, Armenians and his belief that people can live together yet maintain their own values. Dr Maillotte who found Nigerians to be arrogant but well trained doctors. Saidu the Liberian who lost his family in the war, travelled from Liberia to Lisbon where he worked as a barber and a butcher to afford a flight to America, only to make it to JFK airport where he was taken by customs officers to a detention facility and finally Moji, a ghost of Julius’ past with a jaw-dropping secret.

I finished this book with mixed feelings. It was by no means a light read, but it was very unique and special in its own right.

On to the next book. Night Dancer by Chika Unigwe. See you on the first of next month.
Bye.

Egg-Larva-Pupa-Woman by Ogo Akugbue-Ogbata

My friend Aisha read this book and recommended it to me. She was so in love with it that she spent an entire day reading it and didn’t stop till she finished. So, on to amazon I went to buy a copy.

Well, I wasn’t as in love with this book as she was. On my first attempt I thought “is there such a thing as being too descriptive?” a few lines later I decided there was, put the book down and rang Aisha up. She had no clue what I was on about; so thinking I was being overly critical I persisted. I found that underneath the mass of what I thought were overdone descriptions and excessive similes was a really good story.

This book chronicles the journey of Nkiru Nwodo from a happy, little girl to a cold, bitter, married mother of four. Her transformation from Egg to Woman began with the suicide of her mother. Her womanising dad left her at the mercy of her step-mother and no, not your typical wicked step-mother out of Cinderella, this woman was psycho, and had a secret that was so out of the ordinary my jaw dropped in recognition of it. Down swoops extended family to rescue poor little Nkiru and so begins the tale that makes one question the role of extended family and the help they seem to offer in times of need. Do they help from the goodness of their heart? Is there a hidden agenda? And can anything ever replace the love of a lost family? Despite the odds this girl graduated from University, married a good man, had kids yet remained so blinded by bitterness and a searing need to right old wrongs that she clung to her past and never really lived in her present.

Nkiru’s journey which took her from Nigeria to Uganda, Kenya, Sierra Leone, resting finally in London was played out along side Nigeria’s journey from colonisation to independence and through the Biafran war. This book has snippets of history and politics from an Igbo perspective, actually often two different perspectives as Nkiru and her politics-loving, diplomat husband, Ejimonye never really seemed to agree. Have you ever heard of Zikism: the admiration of Nnamdi Azikiwe? I hadn’t till I read this book. All in all, it was an interesting read. Thanks Aisha for recommending it, if you have any books to recommend please email me or leave me a comment.

On to the next book, Open City by Teju Cole, by the way, this book is available in Waterstones stores.
See you next month. 
BYEE

The Spider King's Daughter by Chibundu Onuzo

Ohhh this book.

This book was like a rollercoaster that went from the real and thought-provoking to the dramatic, intriguing and slightly Nollywood movie-ish. It was an awesome page-turner. The first line had me completely gripped. For me that’s rare, I usually get into a book after the first 2 maybe 3 chapters when the author is done setting the scene. But this one,naaa. I was on the train from Birmingham to Leeds debating whether to read this book or listen to my iPod. I guess you know which I picked.

The book intrigued me for various reasons. We saw how two people of completely different social standing saw each other’s worlds. We were in both their heads when the hawker took the “aje butter, rich man pikin” through Tejuosho market and to a “mama put”. We were in both their heads when the hawker saw how she treated the drivers and security guards that her dad employed. We watched them scrutinise each other and rub off each other just a little bit.  Seeing the life of the rich man pikin through the eyes of the hawker and vice verse was insightful and intriguing.  We also saw the makings of a relationship through the eyes of the guy and the girl simultaneously, how rare is that; we saw a rather twisted and warped father-daughter relationship; and the faux-friendship if that even describes it, through the eyes of the queen bee and her most loyal minion.

Naturally after reading a book and enjoying it this much my next thought was “who wrote this?” a question Google answered pretty well. This book was written by a Nigerian undergrad. I was thoroughly impressed, particularly because I remember when I was an undergrad, I can assure you that aside from studying and making sure I got a good degree, I did nothing this productive or even remotely close. Then I found this link and was even more impressed: http://www.thethoughtfox.co.uk/?p=6254. She started writing this when she was 17. I mean wow, what were you doing when you were 17?

I enjoyed this book sooo much I wanted to talk about it with my usual friends who generally tend to read the same books I read and we have very interesting conversations discussing the characters, the plot, how we can relate, bla bla. No it’s not geeky, it makes for good conversations, good laughs and a great time. Unfortunately, I am the first to read this book and there was no-one I could call and go “oooo my days”, “did you see that coming?” “If I saw myself from the outside is that what I would see?” and so on. So I decided to blog it. VOILA.

This book was a good read. To the author, I hail you and look forward to your next book.

Now that’s out of my system, on to the next book. Egg-Larva-Pupa-Woman by Ogo Akubue-Ogbata. See you in about 2-3weeks… no it doesn’t take me that long to read a book, but babes are busy and it’s Easter.

BYYEE

Happy Easter.