I really wanted to love this book because it started out with a lot of promise. I loved this naive Ogadinma who is tricked into losing her virginity and losing her opportunity to go on to further study but battles against abuse and adversity to become a strong independent woman in her own right. I felt the book got off to a powerful start but faltered in the middle and provided a lukewarm ending.

I wanted a climax that was as passionate and as fierce as Ogadinma had become but instead I found it too sedate. That said, I think Olisakwe shows ambition in her tackling big, bold subject matters and there is clearly a talent for words at least in the creation of a strong start that draws you in.

I rate this book a 4/5 because there is clear character development, a great plot that I suppose lends itself to a sequel but I would like to see Olisakwe push herself further. There are themes of several types of abuse and as a result, I would suggest the target audience for this book is late teens and older. I think it would also appeal to young females who need to know that they can achieve their dreams. They can make independent choices that aren't dictated by men. And they can be strong. There were some great emotional scenes but maybe I'm cold-hearted, but I found that some scenes didn't draw the empathy I thought they should.

All in all, I would happily purchase this book for a friend and look out for future works.

This was wonderful. The pain and trauma felt by Ogadinma after her ordeal was so poignantly portrayed by the narrator that I felt it too.
There was a development late on in the book that could have been given more attention. Just when I thought there would be a dramatic twist, nothing happened.
The narrator was incredible, soft soothing tones and she gave the accents and Nigerian details true authenticity

Read this book!
This was a powerful book, at times quite a difficult read, It is sure to infuriate anyone who supports women's rights, as it highlights the injustices against Nigerian women in the 1980s.
I was listening to an audiobook version, read by one of my favourite narrators, Adjoa Andoh. I just love the varied accents she uses for Nigerian speech, yet she can divert easily to an English accent for the narration.

Ogadinma is just seventeen when we meet her. She is a young Nigerian woman, living with her father, after her mother left them when she was small. Her one dream is to gain admittance to a university. To do this she needs the help of someone with contacts to support her university admission. Her father is advised that Barrister Chima could help, so Ogadinma goes to visit him in his office. This is her first bad move and leads to a sequence of events that spirals downwards from then on. I don't want to spoil the story for others, I actually feel that the book's introduction already tells too much.

What hit me most about this book was that women weren't just targeted when out on the street, unprotected by friends or relatives, but that often, the perpetrators were just as likely to be people in a position of trust. Yet, once violated, it becomes a disgrace for a woman to even mention it, so the men are never judged for their actions.
In the book there is a sense of things changing, of women just starting to get the beginnings of some freedom. Now, 40 years down the line, I wonder how much has changed.

Highly recommended and a good read for book clubs.

This one comes out next week, and I would definitely reccomend (but check out some trigger warnings). This is a quick read, but not at all an easy one. We follow Ogadinma from when she is 17 years old until her early adult years in 1980 Nigeria. In the first chapter we learn she wants to go to university but her dreams scatter when she gets pregnant after being raped. And that's just the beginning of her harrowing story. But it's not just sad, it's hopeful in places as well. Really well written and narrated, couldn't put it down. 4/5⭐

Many thanks to W F Howes for gifting me a copy of this amazing audiobook via Netgalley, in exchange for my impartial review.

Trigger and Content Warning: Rape, Physical Abuse, Domestic Violence, Substance abuse (alcohol), Abortion, and Post Partum Depression.

This was a raw, powerful, and heartbreakingly beautiful book. I felt so many negative feelings while reading this. They weren't towards the author or her work (which was superb) but towards a lot of the characters and the events the main character went through because of them.

Ogadinma, the eponymous character, went through hell, even from the opening chapters of a book. Set in Nigeria (even though it was set a couple of decades from now), there were so many elements and events and I could relate with, and I'm sure a lot Nigerian born and bred readers will relate with when they read this. Ogadinma's story starts out with her (desperate) search for admission into the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. She had other options she could have easily gotten into, like a university in the North. As a result of tribal and political tensions rocking Nigeria at the time, her father deemed it safer for her to school in the East, so the only option acceptable was UNN. That led her to the tiger's den, the tiger being Barrister Chima. Her experience with Barrister Chima was traumatizing and led to her life as she knew it falling apart.

The author did the most amazing job of weaving so many things together at the start of the book, and working these things to serve as a catalyst for the next part of Ogadinma's story. After her father sent her off to Lagos following her abortion, she's thrust into a new life and blindsided into a relationship, and later marriage with Tobe, her aunt's brother who's almost twice her age. Still as a result of her experiences with Barr Chima, she sees Tobe as a much better person than he actually is, and she glosses over so many red flags. When things take a turn for the worse in Tobe's life due to the military rule in the country, Tobe becomes a monster and Ogadinma gets more than she ever bargained for.

Ogadinma grew up without a mother, and her father who had been everything to her from her childhood, became something else entirely because of "purity culture". Her aunty Ngozi was also another very terrible character in this book. They did nothing but blame Ogadinma for her trauma and abuse, and led her to the slaughterhouse more than once.

I really wish I could say all I want to regarding this masterpiece, but that would result in spoiling it for a lot of readers, and I want you to read this book with a fresh set of eyes and experience everything as freshly and rawly as I did.

The author delved into a lot of important themes and topics, and shed light on many things. She discussed Post Partum Depression, domestic abuse, sexual liberation, how the victim is blamed over and over for their abuse, and so many other things. She not only discussed them, but she did this expertly.

The narration was really something. On one hand, I really love Adjoa Andoh and her narration on other books. She wasn't needed here. This is a Nigerian book set in Nigeria with Igbo primary characters. An Igbo narrator should have done the narration here because the pronunciation of the names was so off. I got so many names wrong and I had to keep replaying at the slowest speed. I'm still not sure I got a lot of the names right.

I breezed through this book in less than 4 hours because it was so good and I just had to know how Ogadinma's story ended. It was really worth it and I loved every bit of it. I highly recommend this book for all readers.

Kamaka Olisakwe's UK debut paints a painfully accurate picture of the deeply patriarchal society in 1980s Nigeria. Our heroine, "Ogadinma", is fragile but brave. I found her father to be a more sympathetic character than anticipated, as he seems brutally bound by convention and tradition. The audiobook is brilliantly narrated by Adjoa Andoh. She does a first class job of bringing Olisakwe's nuanced and multifaceted characters to life.

Set in 1980s Nigeria, Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be Alright tells the story of Ogadinma from when she was sexually assaulted as a young girl until her early adult years. While only a few years pass, we follow Ogadinma as she battles against familial and societal pressures and as a reader you are in her corner from page one and continue to root for her until the last page.

Olisakwe has written a beautiful and heartbreaking novel that I would recommend to everyone. The audiobook and Andoh's narration truly help to add a sense of authenticity to the writing and I think it works wonderfully.

Thank you to W.F. Howes Ltd and NetGalley for a copy of the audiobook of Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be Alright.

Ogindinma is the story of a Nigerian woman’s journey to independence. However, it’s not an easy journey. Ogadinma’s late teens and early twenties are brutal and tragic. After an unwanted pregnancy following a rape, she is punished by her father and sent to live with an Aunt in Lagos. Ogadinma is then pressured into a marriage with an older man which quickly descends into an abusive and degrading relationship. She suffers so much in the patriarchal and misogynistic culture that surrounds her, as a reader I wanted to shout at her that she doesn’t deserve this shit. I kept hoping that things would work out for her.

The writing feels effortless and the pacing just right. There’s such a strong evocation of Nigerian culture, the sounds of the streets and the taste of the food that I felt I’d been there! It’s a fantastic contemporary novel that hooks you in and won’t let you put it down.

The narration by Adjoh Andoh is superb, she truly brings the book to life. It’s one of those great audiobooks where an extra layer of experience is added by it being read aloud. I highly recommend.

Thanks to @netgalley and WFHowes for my audiobook copy.