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