Tag: book-reviews

Dysfunctional Families, Fiction, literary fiction

Book Review: Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

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“She had loved him, and he had needed to break her completely to leave her for good. Agnes Bain was too rare a thing to let someone else love. It wouldn’t do to leave pieces of her for another man to collect and repair later.”

Shuggie Bain tells the story of a family in 1980s Glasglow, Scotland. Thatcher’s policies have put husbands and sons out of work and the city’s notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings. This story delves into Shuggie’s family and their history. There is Agnes Bain who is Shuggie’s mother and his entire world but is a burden for him and his siblings, his father, who he is named after, is a philandering taxi driver who has left his mother completely broken, his siblings who fight to get away from the burden that is their parents and their grandparents who have had to pick up the pieces for so long. This is a story about addiction, sexuality and love.

I picked up this book because I’m waiting for my library to release Stuart’s John of John to me which has just been long listed for the Booker prize and was Oprah’s book club pick for May. I decided to pick up Shuggie Bain because everyone referred to him as the author of Shuggie Bain and I’d never even heard about this book before. This book won the Booker Prize in 2020. Anyway, this book should not have been titled Shuggie Bain because it was not about him at all. This was about the entire Bain family and more prominently about their mother, Agnes Bain. It is about how Agnes’ choices and her life might have shaped her children’s life. Shuggie isn’t even 16 when the story ends so we don’t even see how her choices shaped his life at all. I couldn’t actually figure out who Shuggie was on the page because the author spent the entire time telling us how the kids perceived him and not how he actually was. His entire character was defined by his sexuality or what everyone around him saw as him being different because Shuggie never actually came out as gay, but everyone agreed he didn’t behave or walk like a “real” boy.

Agnes Bain was someone who the author did not manage to make sympathetic to me. I found everything about her to be slightly pathetic, and I felt bad that I just wanted her to be off the page so I could get to the part where Shuggie grows up. Shuggie never grows up and Agnes dominates the entire book so essentially, I did not get what I wanted at all or what the title of the book promised me. Agnes makes choices without ONCE putting her kids first. Not once. Every single choice she makes in this book was self-serving and in pursuit of male companionship. She leaves a stable marriage with two kids after having an affair with a taxi driver, she then succumbs to addiction to dull the pain from the treatment she gets from said man in her second marriage, she then uproots her kids from their grandparents’ house to a house she’s never seen before still in pursuit of this man and when said man finally leaves her and she manages to achieve sobriety she goes back to the drink because of another man. Agnes was too male centered for me to be sympathetic to her story.

Shuggie is sexually molested by multiple people in this book but at no point do we know what Shuggie actually feels about these incidents. We move right past them to being told how many cigarettes and bottles of alcohol Agnes was having while her child was being molested. We get multiple incidents of people molesting him and a scene where he thinks it’s so normal that he offers himself as payment to a taxi driver when his mother kicks him out of the house without any money, but we never even see Shuggie struggle with this. He moves right past it to continue being a caretaker for his mum and trying to keep her alive without any thought to his well-being.

Agnes’ other two kids Catherine and Leek. Catherine has the right idea to get out as soon as she could. She marries her stepfather’s cousin and skips out of Scotland straight to apartheid South Africa to supervise the blacks. Apart from the moving to South Africa to help with all the oppressing, I actually thought she had the best idea to leave Agnes. She knew from the start that she wasn’t going to stay and save her mother, and she took the first flight out of the dysfunction while Leek and Shuggie wallowed in it. When Leek finally gets out, he has only one sentence of advice for Shuggie – leave as soon as you can, but Shuggie loved their mother too much and did not know any other type of life to escape of his own free will.

Anyway, I know I’m in the minority, but I found this book very one note, but this is a favorite in the literary community so still give it a go. I gave this 3 stars on Goodreads.

Leggy

dystopian, Fantasy, Fiction

The 4 Best Fantasy Books I’ve read in 2026 So Far

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This year has been a really hard fantasy year for me. Romantasy is the publishing industry’s darling lately so a lot of the fantasy I like to read has been put on the back burner. But here are 4 books I’ve managed to read so far in 2026 that I thought had a really good premise and I actually enjoyed.

In no particular order:

1. Mortedant’s Peril by R. J. Barker (The Trials of Irody Hasp #1):

Irony Hasp is a Mortedant, a cleric tasked with reading the last thoughts of the dead. He’s extremely unpopular, rarely gets work and is scarcely tolerated even by the other members of his guild. After reading the corpse of a low-level records keeper, Irody’s troubles quickly multiply when his apprentice is murdered and he is accused of his death. He gets 72 hours to proof that he is not the murderer, but his investigation is attracting powerful enemies with few scruples, and he has to figure out why the thoughts of a low-level records keeper is worth his life. I really enjoyed this book and thought the world building was very well done. Seeing the different levels humans in this book are classified in and seeing the Mortedant look down his noses at them even when he can barely afford to live on the 5th level was quite funny. This one was not as popular as it should have been, and I happened upon it on Goodreads newly released list and gave it a shot. Was very happy that I did.

2. The Art of Prophecy by Wesley Chu (War Arts #1):

A prophecy – A child will rise to defeat the Eternal Khan and liberate the kingdom. The Hero – Jian has been found as the boy who was foretold in the prophecy and raised in luxury and splendor, celebrated before he has won a single battle. Taishi arrives to evaluate the prophesied hero and finds a spoilt brat unprepared to fight anyone worth his salt. As she takes over his training and tries to make him better something unfortunate happens. One day, during a skirmish an ordinary soldier kills the Eternal Khan making Jian useless. The prophecy has failed or the prophecy was wrong. The kings of the different regions that make up the kingdom want to kill him so that he cannot be used as a political pawn but as he is tossed into the real world to escape the kings’ assassination attack, he has to hide who he really is in order to survive and figure out what to do when you’re no longer a hero. I absolutely loved this book. I went into it blind and when the Khan died 20 pages into the book, I was so surprised! I was so excited not to read the usual hero book.

3. Daughter of Crows by Mark Lawrence (The Academy of Kindness #1):

I did not like Mark Lawrence’s last series – The Library Trilogy. I managed to finish the first book in the series, but I was so bored and then I never got through the second one. I’m usually a Mark Lawrence completionist but that series killed that for me. Anyway, the Lawrence that I fell in love with is back with this installment. The Academy of kindness is a brutal academy that creates agents of retribution. They take in 100 girls every year and only graduate 3 after ten long years of training. They are cast in the image of the furies against whom even the gods hesitate to stand. Only the desperate would sell their child to the Academy but Rue sold herself. And years after she graduated from the academy and after years as a kindness she has finally retired as an old woman, but war has been brought to her doorstep. That was a mistake. I absolutely loved reading the brutality of this one. Lawrence tells the story of the academy from a POV, but you don’t know if who is telling the story is Rue. We skip between the present day, and the academy and the academy was so fascinating. Anyway, I really enjoyed this one and think the second book is going to be even more amazing.

4. The Strength of a Few by James Islington (Hierarchy #2):

“A society cannot make a man a monster, Diago. But it can give him the excuse to become one.”

I think anyone who knows me knows that The Will of the Many was my favorite read of 2023. This is the second book in the Hierarchy series. Vis wins the ludicum at the end of book 1 and we find out how the Labyrinth actually works. The Strength of the Few sees Vis in 3 completely different worlds with completely different magic operating system and it is amazing what Islington is able to achieve building this world that is starting to feel too big to contain. The stakes feel higher but at the end he makes some choices that do not feel like what our main character would do at all and it made me question whether Islington would be able to land the ending. Anyway, it’s really hard to explain this series because it’s so convolated but if you love epic fantasy and world building, please pick this series up.

There you have it. 4 fantasy books that I’ve read so far that I actually enjoyed. Let me know which fantasy books you’ve enjoyed this year in the comments. Maybe I’ll give them a go.

Leggy

literary fiction, Mystery

Book Review: Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

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“But here is the nature of life. That we must love things with our whole selves, knowing they will die.”

Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island that is home to the world’s largest seed bank. As Shearwater risks being lost to rising sea levels, the island’s researchers have fled and only the Salts remain. They have been tasked with packing up most of the seed bank so that the next ship can carry the Salts and the seeds back to the mainland before the island drowns. During the worst storm in living memory, a woman washes ashore. The family nurses the woman, Rowan, back to strength but she has come to look for her husband, a man who was one of the researchers and has since gone missing.

This book got on my TBR list because it was on every round up list last year. I was so desperate to read it because people who I trust loved it so much. Unfortunately, I did not feel the same way. I feel like this book was just not for me. I found the characters to be exhausting in a way I should not have. I wonder now if I just read this book at a bad time for me and maybe if I had read it at a different time, I may have liked it? I also do not like the miscommunication trope at all. You are adults, open your mouth and have an honest discussion especially when the circumstances did not call for that at all. All the things that came afterwards could have been prevented if the truth had been discussed immediately.

The actions the characters took did not make the mystery make any sense. I was expecting a literary fiction about real characters that made me think about the environment and the human condition but all I got were one-dimensional characters that were all made quirky in their own ways. I think authors think giving a character some quirky characteristics conveys depth to that character and it really doesn’t. And then we jump from the two adults being so paranoid and suspicious of each other to sudden lust. They can’t help themselves which is so fascinating to me. You think this man is responsible for the disappearance of the husband you have crossed the ocean to find but you still have space between your paranoia to have a little sex? I did not understand the motivations of the characters.

I do think there are some moments in this story that resonated with me and brought some emotional depth. The scene with the whale and her baby was so well written that I was rooting for them so much. There are passages like that that made me really love the author’s writing, but these scenes are very few and far between. As the ship arrives to the island and we hurtle towards the conclusion the author loses all subtlety and decides to go for an emotional punch that felt quite manipulative and did not work for me at all. It all felt completely unnecessary to the plot and designed to wring as much emotion from the readers as possible. Also, I know this book is about climate change and the way the author hammers us over the head with the passages written with the POV of the young boy, it got tiring and after a while it even stopped registering as I read. I just wanted it over so I could get back to the action.

Obviously, I’m in the minority with this one but I was absolutely disappointed with my experience with this book because I was so sure it was right in my wheelhouse. Unfortunately, this did not work for me at all and after a while I just wanted it to end. I gave this book 2 stars on Goodreads.

Leggy

dystopian, Fiction, literary fiction, women's fiction

Book Review: Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

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“The goal of an influencer is not to be lovable, and it is not to be unbearable. The goal is to be both at once. In other words: addicting.”

Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. She’s married to a senator’s son who is a handsome cowboy, her charming farmhouse is rustic, and her six children are all so perfect and delightful. Natalie is an influencer with millions of followers whose father-in-law is currently running for president and wants to use her influence to get him to the white house. She never discloses the workers on the farm, the producers behind the scenes, or the nannies that keep everything running. She hides the microwave and the industrial grade fridges and ovens and performs for the camera. One day, she wakes up and she’s living a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband and her children are different but familiar. Her kitchen has no electricity, and her children are dirty and strange and there are no nannies.

I think this is one book where the premise was so much better than the actual execution. What I was expecting was not what I got. The way this book was marketed was very misleading and even though I still rolled with the punches as they came, the reading experience ended up being unsatisfying. But I also like the way the main character Natalie was written. She drove me crazy because sometimes she would have so much insight about the disparity between men and women, but she would never come to the right conclusions. She just kept digging in her heels even when a smart woman like her should have pivoted. I never felt a lot of dislike for her, in fact, I actually felt such compassion for her and was sad to see her life just go downhill.

Natalie’s descent into paranoia was hard to read about. She became so resentful of other women and the commenters, and she would make up elaborate stories about how horrible their lives were compared to the perfect life she had curated. At points, it seemed that she had forgotten that her life on social media was not actually the life she was actually living. The writer traps us inside her mind as it unravels into chaos, and it was not a nice place to be at all. Nothing in her life is grounded and every experience is filtered through the lens of how it would appear on social media. She completely surrenders her life to the new producer who enters her life and even though there were so many red flags, she completely ignores them just because of the number on social media.

When Natalie wakes up in the actual trad life she’s been curating online and when we find out how she got there and what the premise actually what, it leaves me so disappointed. Because you’re left to wonder if Natalie is actually a manipulative social media mastermind or just a mentally ill woman who is trapped in the identity she has built and can no longer recognize the real world from the one she has curated. The author completely denies any responsibility of what kind of story she’s telling. She expects the audience to decide what Natalie is. You start to wonder if this is a book about an influencer or just a book about how mental illness shows up in women. She completely gives over the responsibility to the audience to decide what type of book they want to be and I don’t know if this is genius or if this is a way for the author to escape all criticisms about labelling large groups of people – Christians, trad wives, influencers etc.

Eventually, after going through the chaos that is Natalie’s mind and ultimately arriving to an end that doesn’t wrap up with a bow. I think this is one book that is going to stay with the reader whether you enjoy it or not. I ended up giving this 3 stars on Goodreads.

Leggy

celebrity memoir, Memoirs, Non-Fiction

We Chit Chat: Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden

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“Everyone has something. This is yours. Each life has a defining crisis.”

Leggy: I’ve had Strangers on my list for the longest time because I heard about it on some podcast. I was on the waiting list for so long and surprisingly it checked out to me the month my book club decided to read it.

Taynement: I’ve seen it everywhere and you told me to read it. So, I did! I found it to be a quick read. As a summary, the book is by Belle Burden who tells the story of how at the beginning of the pandemic she finds out that her husband has been cheating on her.

Leggy: Yes, it is a very quick and compelling read. I thought her writing was really good for a first-time writer. Also, it was like a mystery book where the mystery never gets solved which I liked because I think that’ s just life. We’re never going to know the whys of everything that happens to us.

Taynement: It’s crazy because she found out from the husband of the woman he was cheating with. He left a voicemail letting her know. Almost sounds like fiction till you remember it’s a memoir.

Leggy: Her husband’s reaction to the whole thing was also so fascinating to me. First, begging her for forgiveness and then waking up and deciding to leave her. I think his first reaction was a knee jerk reaction. And then he went to bed, thought about it and decided this was his chance to leave the marriage. He realized he actually didn’t want to be married anymore.

Taynement: That was the great mystery of this book. What was the motivation? Why?

Leggy: I think when you’re first caught in a lie your first instinct is to make it better. But later, when you think about it, you feel like you know what? I actually don’t care. I no longer want to be in this. Did you expect the book to solve that mystery?

Taynement: Up to a certain point. Then I realized she genuinely didn’t know why he left. It’s fascinating that she still doesn’t have an answer till now. I’m interested in knowing his line of reasoning for wanting to keep that to himself.

Leggy: I actually think he doesn’t know why.

Taynement – Hmm. That’s tough to reconcile. There has to be a reason to not want to be with your wife or be an active participant in your children’s lives. The way he moved was very bizarre even if he fell out of love, that’s at least a reason but the way he handled it was insane.

Leggy: He was very cruel. I think there are certain lies you tell someone just because you loved them at some point and the fact that he wasn’t even willing to do that is insane. Also, this whole book is why I cannot stand the whole “soft girl” movement on social media. I think the life of dependency we’re promoting to young girls is ridiculous. Oh, just turn off your brain and let him lead. You have no idea after 20 years what your husband makes at work? This is the future we’re setting up young girls for.

Taynement: To that effect, I think it’s because she comes from money and money was never going to be an issue for her. Not included in the book was her actual net worth.

Leggy: Her story is not unique to any social class. There are thousands of women who are not rich or white who have this exact same story. No difference. I’ve heard people admit to buying houses in their husbands’ names just because she wanted him to feel like the man even when they contributed nothing towards the house. This story is not unique in any way. I have friends who don’t know what their husbands make at work and none of them have trust funds.

Taynement: Part of her blind trust was in purchasing their home with her money and basically relinquishing decision making to him.

Leggy: She was a lawyer and got advised by her lawyers not to sign that prenup but she acted like she couldn’t even comprehend the language of a standard legal document. When she kept saying it could happen to anyone, I kept thinking – yes, a man leaving you could happen to anyone but the rest of it I don’t agree can. The rest of it was in her control.

Taynement: You seem annoyed by her.

Leggy: I just see her as the culmination of all the trad ideas social media now pushes. I think this book came out at the right time. “Oh, why did our mothers fight to work” because dumb ass, this is your future. You think they didn’t already try these ideas and recognized that they don’t work? Also, you’re a stay-at-home wife while every single person in your life worked including your older stepmother who was paying your children’s school fees, and you never thought to yourself – where is his money going?! While I thought this book was extremely well written, fair to all parties involved and very vulnerable, I couldn’t help feeling angry at her justifications of her choices. What did you think of how she decided to be honest about the breakup?

Taynement: Her stepmother paying the children’s school fees was wild to me. She definitely wanted to make her husband’s life easier. One less thing for him to worry about. The honesty about the breakup is something else I was fascinated by. She grew up in a “don’t share our dirty laundry” and old money family. Was it really cathartic or was it a fuck you to him? Speaking of her family, it took me a minute to recognize her grandmother was THE Babe Paley. For those who don’t know, she was part of the high society swans who were famously outed by Truman Capote. Ryan Murphy recently did a TV series and she was played by Naomi Watts. There were other connections too – her stepmom famously dated Charlie Rose for 18 years. They broke up because he was accused of sexual misconduct.

Leggy: I’m going to adopt that honesty thing going forward. I think so often we carry the shame of what men have done as if it says something about us. Like we were not good enough and that’s why he cheated. I want to become the person who says “We broke up because he cheated”. Like why is it on me to keep the secrets of your bad behavior?

Taynement: The truth will set you free. Ha ha. When she wondered if this was a generational thing and would her daughter do the same thing?

Leggy: Yes, when she was talking about the history of women in her family being cheated on and it reminded me of Lemonade by Beyonce so much. Where Beyonce reads those poems in between the songs and she talks about the generations of women in her family that have been cheated on and she goes – ‘What luck. What a fucking curse!”

Taynement: Way to get Beyonce in!

Leggy: lmaooo. I watched the Lemonade movie after this book! I really enjoyed this book, and it was a great book club pick. I think I gave it 5 stars.

Have you guys heard about this one? Have your read it? Let us know in the comments!

Black Authors, Historical, literary fiction

Book Review: With Love From Harlem by Rashonda Tate

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“Being a negro woman in America teaches you resilience. You learn to focus on the good, even when it’s hard.” 

It’s 1943 and Hazel Scott is a black woman breaking boundaries in the entertainment world. She is a prolific jazz musician, a TV and film star and also a civil rights advocate in her own way. She meets Adam Clayton Powell Jr., a preacher turned politician who sweeps her up with his charm except for the fact that he is married. Hazel cannot resist him and the two go on to have a long relationship filled with ups and downs. The book takes us along the rollercoaster of their relationship that includes Hazel losing herself and opportunities, while trying to maintain the facade of a power couple.

“When a mistress becomes a wife, that means the mistress spot is now open”

I was reading this book and smiling at the familiar names like Billie Holiday, Nina Simone etc. I was already fascinated by the fact that Tate was seamlessly incorporating a fictional character and building a world around her with real life people. So imagine my surprise, 80% into the book when Quincy Jones makes an appearance and I decide to do a google search and realize that HAZEL SCOTT IS REAL! quickly followed by shame that I had never heard of Hazel Scott – but I believe that was the author’s goal in writing this book, giving her name life.

“One day, you’ll look up and realize you’ve poured yourself out for everyone else—and there’s nothing left for you”

The book centers around the life of Hazel, and her messy love life that includes having a husband as her op. The story takes us through the years from Harlem to DC to Paris and feels like peeking behind the curtain of the every day lives of the names we have heard so much about. I truly appreciate and respect what Tate did with this book because it had to have taken a LOT of time and research to create and build this world. Some creative liberties were taken but they were taken at the right spots and kept the story moving. At certain times, the writing felt a bit amateurish and I had to remind myself that it was probably better that way vs. an overwritten story that was already complex and had many moving parts.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and was swept away by the world “enhanced” by Tate. The book had me googling so many things and I learned a lot that I did not know before. This was historical fiction done right and I definitely recommend.

Taynement

Chick-Lit, romance

10 Romance Book Recommendations for Valentine’s Day!

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As we approache Valentine’s Day, I decided to share 10 of some of my favorite romance books from the last couple of years:

Back After this by Linda Holmes:

Cecily Foster is offered the chance to host her own show, and she is thrilled but there are two catches – the show has to be about her dating life, and she has to follow the guidance of influencer and relationship coach Eliza. So, while Cecily commits to twenty blind dates of Eliza’s choosing, she can’t stop herself from thinking about Will, a photographer she helped rescue a dog with.

The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory:

When Nikole gets proposed to at a football game by a man she had only been dating for 5 months and has to say no and disappoint 45000 fans, her life turns upside down. At the game with his sister, Carlos comes to Nik’s rescue and rushes her away from a camera crew. Nik knows in the wilds of LA, a handsome doctor like Carlos can’t be looking for anything serious, so she embarks on an epic rebound with him until their hookups start getting a little bit too real. Full review on the blog here!

The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center:

Emma Wheeler has been the sole caretaker for her kind-hearted dad for years, but she’s finally gotten the chance to write a script for famous screenwriter Charlie Yates and it’s a break too big to pass up. Emma’s younger sister steps in for caretaking duties and Emma moves to LA for 6 weeks to fulfil her dream, but her hero turns out to be nothing like she imagined!

Summer Fridays by Suzanne Rindell:

A retelling of You’ve Got Mail, Sawyer is having an incredibly lonely summer in New York. Her fiancé has been spending so much time with an all-too-close female colleague, Kendra. When Kendra’s boyfriend, Nick, invites Sawyer to compare notes about their suspicions, Sawyer’s lonely summer takes an unexpected turn. She and Nick begin exploring New York City together every summer Friday but what happens when the summer is over?

Summer Romance by Annabel Monaghan:

Ali’s mother died two years ago and then her husband left so when Ali meets Ethan at a dog park, there is no reason not to have herself a little summer fling is there? Find a full review on the blog here!

A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole:

Naledi Smith keeps getting emails claiming that she’s betrothed to an African prince. As a former foster kid, she’s learned that the only things she can depend on are herself and science and a scammer won’t convince her otherwise. Prince Thabiso is the sole heir of the throne of Thesolo and dutifully, he tracks down his missing betrothed, but when Naledi mistakes him for a pauper, he can’t resist the chance to experience life without the burden of his crown. Full review on the blog here!

Funny Story by Emily Henry:

When Daphne’s fiancé, Peter, realizes that he’s in love with his childhood best friend, Petra, he breaks up with Daphne and gives her one week to move out. Without friends or family and in a new city, she becomes roommates with the one person who can understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak. Find a full review on the blog here!

Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez:

Briana’s life is not going as planned. Her divorce is just about finalized, her brother needs a kidney donor and the promotion she wants is probably going to the new male doctor, Jacob Maddox. When Jacob sends her an actual letter that starts a correspondence between them, she realizes he’s an amazing guy, but when he decides to give her brother a kidney, she wonders how she can continue to resist him.

The Deal by Elle Kennedy:

When Garrett’s plummeting GPA is threatening the hockey career, he’s worked all his life for, he turns to Hannah to tutor him and in return he promises to make her crush jealous by pretending to date her. But when one unexpected kiss leads to the best sex of both their lives, it doesn’t take long for Garrett to realize that pretend isn’t going to cut it.

Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry by Joya Goffney:

Quinn loves making lists – from the days she ugly cried to all the boys she’s ever kissed. An anonymous account posts a list from Quinn’s journal for the whole school to see on Instagram and blackmails her into facing seven of her greatest fears or else her entire journal will go public. Desperate, Quinn teams up with Carter Bennett in a race against time to track down the blackmailer.

Hope you find something you like and Happy Valentine’s Day!

Leggy

african author, african stories, Black Authors, Fiction, literary fiction, women's fiction

Book Review: The Sun Sets In Singapore by Kehinde Fadipe

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“Sometimes the best person to listen to is the person who did exactly what you don’t want to do. Don’t let what your grandparents or your mother or anyone else wants or wanted influence you now”

Dara, Amaka and Lillian, all of Nigerian heritage, are currently expats living in Singapore. Dara is a lawyer, Amaka is a banker and Lillian was a pianist who moved from the U.S with her American husband. They are all living the lives they have created for themselves in Singapore, while each fighting their own battles until a new arrival, Lani steps in and affects their lives in different ways.

This was an okay read for me. It had an intriguing premise but I think I wavered on the execution. One minute, I found myself invested in the characters because Fadipe did a good job in fleshing them out and you get a good sense of who they are and how they are handling their various predicaments. We get a good grasp of their background and their families and the connection and friendships between each other, also made sense. Dara’s struggle as a black woman in a law firm, Amaka dating a non-Nigerian and not seeing it as long term and Lillian feeling lost and trying to find her place were all realistic.

But then the next minute, it just felt like the drama was never ending and it was being stretched out for no reason and because I was itching for a resolution, the characters started becoming annoying. I specifically found Dara to be bratty. The pace picked up the second half of the book and because so much was happening, I didn’t know how I felt. So much was going on and I didn’t have the bandwidth to care deeply for all of them. That’s the other thing, be prepared for a million and one stories going on at the same time.

I did this book on audio and I honestly wouldn’t recommend doing audio, if you are Nigerian. The narrator had a British accent and was fine for the general narration but when it came to pronouncing the Igbo names, the pronunciation was terrible and in the little Igbo spoken, it was butchered. Her American accent was such struggle bus and it had me cringing and the last straw for me was when she read out the famous 1004 apartments as 10-04 vs. one thousand and four. There were also a bunch of volume or tone fluctuations where you could tell the difference from when she picked it up at a different time.

Overall, as mentioned above, I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it either. I do think that it was a decent read that serves well as a filler read or reading palate cleanser. I think it is obvious that this is a debut book but I would still check out other books by her.

Taynement

Best & Worst

Our Best and Worst Books of 2025

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Another year of reading is coming to a close and as always, we share with you what our best and worst books of the year were.

Taynement’s Best:

Most of the books I enjoyed this year were not flashy, out there books. They were books that just sat with me and moved me. Grown Women is a story about four generations of women who wanted to get it right as mothers but in their own ways fell short of doing that. Some may argue that the book was a little sad since it touched on trauma, abuse and some mental health issues but that was not the case for me as it was part of their story and in reality, the story of a lot of black women. It felt like one long therapy session reading about their lives, recognizing their failings and working on correcting it. Overall, even though I was reading about very flawed characters, I still found myself rooting for them and wanting to follow their journey.

Other favorites:

  • You Will Never Be Me by Jesse Q. Sutanto – This was not a subtle book and it had me delighted from start to finish. You can read my review here.
  • Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh.
  • Spectacular Things by Beck Dorey-Stein: I am a sucker for a family story so this was no different. The first chapter starts with an outrageous request and by th etime you are done with the book it doesn’t seem so outrageous. You can read my review on it here.
  • Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson: Another family story that spanned generations and delved into the history of an affluent African-American family.

Leggy’s Best:

“Respect, that’s all we demand. Recognition of our magnificence. Offerings. Love. Fear. Trembling awe. Worship. Shiny things. Blood sacrifice, some of us very much enjoy blood sacrifice. Truly, we ask for so little.”

I stumbled on this book while browsing Goodreads a couple weeks ago. I was shocked that I had never heard of it even though it had thousands of reviews. These days when I read a fantasy plot and it has no romance in it then I know it’s for me. Everyone knows how much I do not like romantasy. Give me revenge. Write me a story of a character burning everything down to achieve his/her means and you’ll have me immediately. Give me a smart character! Give me strength! Give me twists. I have enjoyed everyone I recommended this book to coming back to me at certain points to be like WTF?! and I’m like “I KNOW!”. Anyway, this is the best book I read this year.

Some other favorites:

  • “Being beautiful, was that for men?”Yes. Some women say that it is for ourselves. What on earth can we do with it? I could have loved myself whether I was hunchbacked or lame, but to be loved by others, you had to be beautiful.”
    I Who Have Never Known Man by Jacqueline Harpman. This is a work in translation that was originally written in 1995 and had quite the resurgence this year. I absolutely love this one. It was so well written but also gave no answers. It made me feel so claustrophobic and I could not imagine actually living that life.

  • “I often think of how much love is lost as gay kids grow up. We are robbed of the chance to experience the innocence of early teenage love. Because you spend all that time filled with fear, mastering your own pretense.”
    Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh. Tayne and I chitchatted about this one here.

  • “It’s a very particular time in your life, when someone you love is dying. The world doesn’t stop for you. We know this, but in our hearts we are shocked. We are like famous people who say: But don’t you know who I am? Except we want to say, But don’t you know what I’m going through? How can you speak to me like that when my mother is dying?”
    Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty. Tayne reviewed this here.

Taynement’s Worst:

Like Leggy, my worst book is an old read. It was a work book club choice and I just could not get into it. I couldn’t get invested in the characters. It was a chore to understand and it just didn’t evoke any emotion from me.

Special mention to The Favorites by Layne Fargo. It did evoke emotions from me but not good ones. I just kept thinking “this makes no sense”. It also just read like it was written strictly for a movie adaptation and didn’t work for me.

Leggy’s Worst:

Usually, I just look for the book I gave one star and give it the worst book of the year, but I didn’t give any 1 star this year. I gave this book 2 stars which I actually give to many books. 2 stars to me just means it was okay, wasn’t for me. So, this was the most not for me out of all the books I gave two stars to this year.

I finally read Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I know I’m super later than the rest of the world, but I finally got there. I found this book to be incredibly self-indulgent, and I couldn’t understand why it swept the world by storm. I just do not get it. I think Gilbert is a good writer though. I’m just not sure she’s a self-aware human.

Thank you so much for sticking with us this year. Let us know your best and worst books of the year in the comments. Happy Holidays, everybody!

Taynement & Leggy

african author, african stories, Black Authors, Fiction, LGBT, literary fiction, Nigerian Author, romance, We Chit Chat

We Chit Chat – Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh

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“It’s one thing to love a child, but it’s an entirely different thing for the same child to feel loved. A home is the last place a child should feel conditionally loved.”

Leggy: I remember seeing this book months ago on Bookstagram. An Asian content creator popped up on my feed talking about this book and I sent it to you and suggested we read this.

Taynement: Yep! It was a book by a Nigerian author being spoken about by a non-Nigerian and it piqued my interest because something I always talk about is wondering how people who aren’t familiar with the culture digest books about Nigeria.

Leggy: This book follows Obiefuna, who was born into a lower middle-class family in Nigeria. His peculiarities make him the black sheep of his family and when his father finds him in an intimate position with another boy, he ships him off to seminary school.

Taynement: To be clear – his peculiarities to them were the fact that he loved to dance and wasn’t particularly good at sports but in reality, he was gay. Obiefuna was a rainbow baby after his mother suffered many losses. He turned out to be a golden child, and his parents attributed their successes to his birth, and he held a special place in his mother’s heart. His father makes the sole decision to ship him off after finding him in a compromising position with a male apprentice without letting his mother know the reason why.

Leggy: This is one of the best books I’ve read this year. I think what makes it so impactful is how quiet and not exaggerated it is. Every time I thought the author was going to make an outrageous choice he always chose something different. And I think the quiet choices make this book even more powerful because you recognize the characters. You know this would absolutely happen in Nigeria. There’s no exaggeration to pull you out of the story and other Obiefuna’s humanity.

Taynement: Yes, it was very realistic, and I agree that it was quiet and not exaggerated. It’s funny because some other books that I have as my faves this year share those same characteristics.

Leggy: What did you think about his experience in boarding school?

Taynement: I think it was true to form. I chuckled when his dad chose that as a form of punishment because it was almost predictable that he would explore his sexuality there. I would say though that I had my heart in my throat the entire time because I kept expecting him to be raped especially when he built a connection with Senior Papilo.

Leggy: Exactly. I was like sending your son to an all-boys school because he’s gay is a choice. That’s something I loved about this book. I thought Senior Papilo was going to rape him as well but that never happened. The author never made any shocking choices and that choice would have been expected.

Taynement: But again, another reason I liked this book is also showing how flawed our parents’ generation was in parenting. They just did not have the tools. His dad thought he was doing his best. Another way that this manifested in the book is when Uzoamaka (Obiefuna’s mother) visited the hospital with Anozie (Obiefuna’s father) and the nurse makes the comment about him being a good man because he accompanied her to the hospital when most men wouldn’t. Anozie loved his family, and he was showing up for his wife.

Leggy: I do believe Anozie genuinely loved his family. He even tried to hide the fact that he found out Obiefuna was gay from his wife because he thought it would break his wife’s heart. When they finally had the discussion in the open and she told him where else would a boy like him be loved if not at home?

Taynement: I do think certain threads were left loose or maybe I did not pick up on their usefulness to the story. The two most prominent were – Ekene’s (Obiefuna’s brother) plot purpose and when Senior Papilo takes him to a brothel.

Leggy: I think Ekene served as a juxtaposition to Obiefuna.

Taynement: I get that, but I don’t know if it was well done. The juxtaposition didn’t seem to have any effect on Obiefuna? Basically, if he was left out of the story would it have affected my understanding of Obiefuna?

Leggy: It was because of him that Obiefuna even came in contact with any traditional masculine things. He would have never gone to the football field if Ekene did not exist. Also, even though Ekene was not that smart he was left in the private school while Obiefuna was moved to seminary school because of his gayness leading the private school to have a meeting with Uzoamaka inquiring why Obiefuna was moved.

Leggy: I also expected Obiefuna’s brother to turn on him at some point because he was portrayed as so macho and being complete opposite of him, but they actually stayed closer than I expected them to. When Obiefuna comes back from holiday and Ekene sings for him to dance. I thought that was such a touching scene.

Taynement: The scene where he tells Obiefuna to dance, do you think it was him acknowledging it? Ekene just seemed to be in the dark about a lot of things.

Leggy: I absolutely think he knew. And I think that scene was a way for him to acknowledge it without having that conversation especially from someone considered traditionally masculine. He was never going to confront it head on.

Leggy: Also, about Senior Papilo taking him to a brothel, honestly, I thought Papilo was gay the way he gathered all those young boys to himself, the way he treated them and the way they competed for his attention. So, when the brothel happened, I was confused. I was actually relieved that the boys just went to a brothel. I genuinely thought they were leaving the school to do something more sinister like armed robbery and that Obiefuna was going to get caught up in it. I was so relieved that that wasn’t the case that I didn’t even think about the brothel anymore. But I think it speaks to how straight men initiate younger boys into what they believe manhood is.

Taynement: Interesting. I do think Papilo is gay but wasn’t going to “give into it”. Papilo is one of those Nigerian men who will marry a woman and live a straight life and a part of me wondered if he was giving Obiefuna an out by taking him to the brothel.

Taynement: And something that struck me was up until the end of the book had Obiefuna actually had sex? He mentions touching and rubbing and we never really going into the nitty gritty of his relationship with the artist.

Leggy: They never described his actual sexual relationship with the artist. Only that he did a lot of drugs with him and I was so worried because obviously Obiefuna was depressed and grieving and I was worried about the path he was heading down. But he never had actual penetrative sex with the long-term boyfriend that comes after the artist.

Taynement: Overall, I think that is the beauty of this book. It was written so well, and it maneuvered from topic to topic so deftly and the story just flowed.

Leggy: This book culminates with the 2014 law that criminalized gay relationships with a hefty 14-year sentence. That was devastating to read about.

Taynement: It was a good balance of reality. I liked the fact that Obiefuna found a community because they do exist in Nigeria.

Leggy: And then when one of his friends was kitoed. By the way, this is an actual thing that happens in Nigeria and that’s when straight men pose as gay men on dating apps to lure gay men out and then they get beaten up, videos are made of them confessing to be gay and then they are robbed while law enforcement looks the other way.

Taynement: All in all, this was a fantastic, well-written book that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Leggy: Such a fantastic book. I loved it so much and it was an easy read.