This was a book I enjoyed, it had themes I love food, friendship and just general musings about life. I did, however, think it was light on the thriller element, I was about halfway through the book before I remembered there was meant to be a thrill element. For the most part, it read like a contemporary novel and remembered during the second half that it needed to add some suspense.

I enjoyed getting to know Ronke, Simi and Boo and it was nice to hear about their backgrounds and how as mixed-raced Nigerian women they all had different experiences with their identities. Ronke was by far my favourite and I loved the sections of her cooking! May is great at describing the actions that Ronke takes when she cooks and I love that we get some recipes, I enjoy books that talk about food so this was a lovely bonus for me. Boo as a character had me laughing, which is rare because she is an unlikeable character and also very easily swayed. It’s rare that an unlikeable character does anything other than irk me, but Boo really had me smirking and pitying her because there was no need for her attitude. But I liked that we had a character like Boo in the story, it added depth amongst the other two who were facing issues we always see in books. They weren’t boring issues, but the ‘want to settle down’ and the ‘feeling of not wanting children because you enjoy your marriage’ are issues discussed in books and real-life a lot. Books don’t often focus on characters like Boo because women like her are just written off as ungrateful, but I liked the addition in this book because it just made their friendship all the more interesting.

I’ll be honest following these three women and their lives and how they interacted as friends were enough for me. However, it is a thriller novel and we are introduced to another character, Isobel who is supposed to bring this element. To be fair, we are introduced to Isobel quite early on, and we see we watch as Isobel befriends the group and how cracks start to form. However it doesn’t feel suspenseful, it just feels like someone shit-stirring and friends not communicating properly. The book is told from the perspective of the three main characters and we get to see how they each interact with Isobel and what leads to the cracks forming. Like I said earlier, it’s like this book forgot it was meant to be a thriller and towards the end were thrown into a whirlwind which seems rushed and incredibly unrealistic. It definitely would have been better to have included the suspense element earlier in the story and perhaps have some sections from Isobel herself. To truly build up the suspense we should have had some insight into this oh so clever “mastermind.” This part of the story was truly underwhelming and I’m not sure why this wasn’t just a straight-up contemporary novel. You can still have everyday villains without the dramatics, and I actually think her infiltration of the group and subtle manipulation of the group could have been more damaging to the group than the crazy revenge plot that was revealed.

Regardless this book did make me laugh, May’s humour is that well known Nigerian humour and I did find myself smiling at so many things. The book feels warmly Nigerian and I love the exploration of race, family and marriage through the different women and how they were living their lives. The book definitely embodies wahala!

*With thanks to @netgalley and @randomhouse for this ARC*

Wahala (meaning trouble), centers around three old friends; Ronke, Simi, and Boo. Three mixed race women living in central London, juggling the two cultures in their lives: Nigerian and English.

For Ronke that means a real love of cooking Nigerian food and embracing her deceased father’s sister, but also dealing with the racism she faces as a black woman in dentistry, and fearing her boyfriend is only dating her as part of a “mixed race fetish” he has.

Boo feels trapped in her role as a wife and mother, wishes she had more freedom in her career, and overall feels a bit lost. She shuns her Nigerian side as she feels she’s worked hard to assimilate herself with British culture.

Simi still feels the sting of her father’s disappointment after she dropped out of medical school, and can seemingly never impress her Nigerian family no matter how successful she is in her job or her marriage.

At least the three women have each other, that is until Isobel shows up, an old friend of Simi’s, determined to slot into this friendship group, whatever it takes, and whatever the consequences are.

I really enjoyed this book; I looked forward to sitting down and immersing myself in their world. I loved the food descriptions, and the insight into Nigerian culture, and I also loved the women’s conversations, which felt true to life. By the end of the book I was rooting for all of them even when they weren’t being their best selves, cause I felt like I knew them at that stage!

This veers towards being a thriller in the second half of the book, which I was expecting as there was a general sense of unease around some of the characters, but that build up was a bit slow and then the crescendo of the story seemed to happen very suddenly! It is overall a slower paced book, but all the better to savour and take your time with.

Wahala by Nikki May

4⭐️

What if your closest friends betrayed your deepest darkest secrets? You’ve known them since childhood and you share your life with them . How did they get to this place ? Can a new friendship in a group really alter existing dynamics ? Were they really true friends to begin with ?
In this twisty tale we meet three friends .Boo happily married to Didier and their adorable daughter Sophia, Ronke a successful dentist dating Kayode , whom her friends don’t approve of and Simi, living the perfect life with Martin who desperately wants to start a family but she doesn’t .

Enter Isobel.Rich, powerful , manipulative and forcefully opinionated .

Loved all the references to the different types of Nigerian food and culture . Comparisons between life and attitudes in London and Lagos . This story of friendship and betray ramped up towards the end as the drama unravelled and revealed itself .
Thanks to Netgally for an arc of this wonderful debut by Nikki May.

Three friends, Ronke, Boo and Simi, cherish their friendship that sustained them through their lives well into adulthood. Each woman is dealing with their own problems and day to day struggles, but they rely on each other to keep them upright. Into this balanced triangle comes Isobel and with her, comes trouble.
“Wahala” is a contemporary story, set in London and deals with a variety of themes, starting with issues of multicultural identities and the intergenerational connections of three Nigerian British friends, as well as the microaggressions and sexism that impacts their lives as women. The book is also soaked in Nigerian culture, especially the cuisine, and it made my mouth water more then once!
I loved how the author weaved the stories of friends and their lives together, showing the complex threads of connection and differences that get cut and rearranged one by one. Isobel in particular was a fantastically portrayed character and I did not expect the book to turn out the way it did because of her! Bit by bit I noticed the mood changing and shifting from a light-hearted read to something darker and more corrupt. A big thumbs up from me, as I loved this debut and will be happy to read more by the author anytime!

An excellent insight into the lives of three very different friends.

I laughed a lot and cried harder.

A superb tale that I could not put down.

Plenty of ups and downs, twists and turns.

Loved it!!!

Highly recommended 5 stars from me.

This was so disappointing. I really wanted to love it, but the writing is very poor. The plot had so much potential, but everything interesting just wasn't developed. Maybe it will make a better TV show. (It also ended very abruptly with a feeble attempt at intrigue.)

Woah, well this one was a rollercoaster! Told from the point of view of three friends, Wahala is the story of what happened when Simi's estranged friend Isobel worms her way into their friendship group.

You can tell from the off that there's something shady about Isobel and it comes to the most dramatic head as we finally understand her motivation for coming into their lives.

I loved how Yoruba is peppered throughout the narrative and Ronke's recipes at the end were a really nice touch.

As I went through, I don't think I particularly liked any of the girls but it's clear that Isobel truly brings out the worst in them. Despite me not particularly liking any of them I was certainly sympathetic to their issues and really wanted them all to get their happy endings, despite the skeletons in their closets. All in all, a fab read.

I was excited for this book but I’m afraid I DNF early on. I found the characters too vein and self-obsessed with putting other characters down. I’m grateful to the publisher for the chance to review.

Wahala is a really interesting book because I feel like it’s a mix of genres, it has the warmth and humour of a book about friendship, with some intriguing secrets that could be straight out of a mystery and then an underlying tension and unreliability that you could easily find in a psychological thriller. The great thing about it is that it is blended together so well, I couldn’t stop reading because I was so invested in the characters but I also loved how unpredictable it could be.

The story focuses on three British-Nigerian friends Simi, Boo, and Ronke and looks at how their relationship changes as Isobel, a friend from the past, ingrains herself into the group. One of the first things I loved about this group of friends is how different they all are but that they are still close, it definitely solidified the fact that even though they all have very different goals and paths that the friendship they formed has been a solid foundation and of course makes the stakes even higher when it starts to shake.

I loved Ronke, she is such a warm and open character, very down to earth and often puts others before herself, I think out of the three she is the person that most of us will relate to. Simi was an interesting character she is very pristine and likes everything a certain way and whilst she sometimes comes across as a bit aloof, she is very compartmentalised and doesn’t give a lot of herself away easily, there was a lot about her personality that I could relate to. Boo is perhaps a little more difficult to relate to because at the start of the story she is feeling very unhappy in her life which comes across in a very selfish way, this then gets exacerbated by Isobel, however, I still wanted things to work out for her.

Some other great characters round out this story, the partners and Sophia, Boo’s daughter, and Aunty K, who all highlight how much changes between the three when Isobel arrives on the scene. Isobel is a brilliantly scheming character, and whilst she is there to be the unlikeable character I couldn’t help but be intrigued about her motivations and wanted to see how things would end up for her.

This book is a great exploration of manipulation and the impact of toxicity on friendships and how that bleeds out into all aspects of life, at the same time as dealing with some of the struggles that women in their 30’s may face, added to that a look at the prejudices aimed at the character for being mixed race. It really is a well-rounded story, and whilst I felt like at some points the miscommunication between the three close friends was a little unrealistic, overall I was totally enthralled by their lives. I will say that I noticed a lot of people mentioning a twist at the end of the book as if it is set up to be a thriller and whilst the ending did come out of the blue, I think this book is written so you are supposed to see most of it coming, that’s what adds to the tension.

I will quickly add that I needed a lot of snacks around me whilst reading this book and after hearing about all the wonderful Nigerian food, and realising that I have yet to experience any, I was glad to see the inclusion of some of Ronke’s recipes at the end. Although I think I’ll maybe find some restaurants to experience it first because I know I could not do them justice.

Wahala is a brilliant debut and a book full of emotion, that will definitely stay with you.

Thanks to NetGalley and The Publisher for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

The premise of this book really intrigued me but its execution frustrated and disappointed me. Other than Ronke, the characters were very annoying/naive/immature to me, especially for their age group. I also had an issue with how Black men were depicted in here - too many stereotypes. But despite all of this it did keep me gripped (maybe for the wrong reasons) but the unbelievable ending was the last straw for me.

However, I would recommend it for pure escapism. I also feel like this book could lead to some heated discussions which will be good for book clubs.

A glorious story of female friendship - Ronke, Simi and Boo are three mixed-race Nigerian/ English friends in their 30s living in London and all looking for what's missing in their lives. A fourth friend, Isobel, enters their lives again to try and fix their 'problems' but safe to say it doesnt go to plan! Really enjoyed reading about the gang, their friendships and what binds them together

Simi, Boo and Ronke are a tight friendship trio until Simi's long-lost childhood friend Isobel turns up on the scene. Rich and glamorous, Isobel slowly draws the girls into her circle, cultivating individual relationships with each of them. She seems intent on exploiting the cracks within their friendships and in other relationships in their lives - but why??

Well apparently 'Wahala' is translated as 'trouble', and there's certainly a lot of that in this novel! I really enjoyed the book. It took me a minute to get to know each of the characters as it was told from their three aspects. It was a fun, fast-paced, exciting book - one of those 'just one more chapter' ones! Some points in the book had me saying 'WHAT? WHY?!' at some of the things the girls did. I think this is Nikki May's debut novel and is due to be turned into a major BBC drama - what a great start to a literary career.

I’ve read some fantastic books by Nigerian writers in recent years, and so when I saw that this was a book about mixed race Nigerian/English women my interest was grabbed. I also love a book about female friendship, so I had to give this one a try.

Ronke, Boo and Simi have been friends since uni, and although their lives are very different in their 30’s, they’re still as close as ever. But when Isobel, a friend from Simi’s past, joins the fold, cracks start to appear. Cracks which turn into gaping, jagged holes and test the women, their friendships and their lives as they understand them to the limit.

This is probably more of a commercial women’s fiction book than I would typically choose, and to begin with I wasn’t sure how much I’d enjoy it. But as the book gains speed and the influence of Isobel starts to work its way into the women’s lives I really got hooked. I also loved the Nigerian culture that plays such a big part of this book, translated as it is into a British setting and through the lens of the mixed-race experience. There are a lot of interesting observations of what it is to be a black woman raised mainly in Britain by a white parent, or to be in a mixed-race relationship. This does lead to a lot of colourism and comments which are verging on racist though, which didn’t sit right to me. The book also explores more universal themes for women, such as career vs motherhood, trying to find a decent relationship, or trying to have it all (and hating every minute). And the friendships in this book are so realistically drawn, with love and jealousy and frustrations all in the mix. But, this did make for characters that I really didn’t like. I think only Ronke is decent, and even then she isn’t without her flaws. Although Isabel is the villain of the piece, it was actually Boo that I hated the most – a self-entitled, selfish narcissist who thinks she deserves everything whilst giving nothing. I usually don’t mind unlikeable characters, usually quite enjoy them, but I felt her story arc was the least satisfying of them all.

I also had to knock a star off this one for the fat shaming. It’s unrelenting. We’re reminded at every turn that Ronke is fat, Ronke likes food, Ronke is fat because she likes food, Ronke needs to lose weight…it doesn’t stop. And it can’t even be defended by it being the viewpoint of the characters, because it’s steeped in the narrative too. When it was revealed that Ronke is actually only a size FOURTEEN I nearly threw my Kindle across the room. Totally uncalled for, adds nothing to the story, and left a bad taste in my mouth.

This book had the potential to be amazing, but had some pretty major issues that I couldn’t look past. Such a shame.

‘Wahala‘ is the debut novel by Nikki May.

Ronke, Simi, Boo are three mixed-race friends living in London. They have the gift of two cultures, Nigerian and English. Not all of them choose to see it that way. Everyday racism has never held them back, but now in their thirties, they question their future. Ronke wants a husband (he must be Nigerian); Boo enjoys (correction: endures) stay-at-home motherhood; while Simi, full of fashion career dreams, rolls her eyes as her boss refers to her urban vibe yet again. When Isobel, a lethally glamorous friend from their past arrives in town, she is determined to fix their futures for them. Cracks in their friendship begin to appear, and it is soon obvious Isobel is not sorting but wrecking. When she is driven to a terrible act, the women are forced to reckon with a crime in their past that may just have repeated itself.

This book is simply brilliant, it’s a debut that is a witty and charming story about love, friendships and unsettledness that made for absolutely great reading. ‘Wahala’ is Nigerian for trouble and this book was certainly trouble for me, as I was reading it into the late hours but it was totally worth it!

The story is seen through the perspective of best friends Ronke, Boo and Simi, three mixed race girls who have a strong bond. They’re all at a crossroads in their lives, Ronke is wanting to settle down with her boyfriend Kayode, even though Boo and Simi think he’s unreliable and a bit of a flake much to her disappointment. Boo is unhappy in her life of doing the same thing each day and wants more from her outspoken little girl Sofia and french husband Didier, whilst Simi is enjoying a child free life, even though her husband Martin actively wants to add another person to their duo. All the girls lives were pretty quiet until the arrival of glamorous and ridiculously rich Isobel, Simi’s childhood school friend, who brings drama and charisma where-ever she goes.

The mix of personalities is wonderful in this story, Ronke is a kind and generous woman who’s loves nothing more than caring for others and cooking traditional Nigerian dishes, which sounded amazing by the way. She’s the one that Boo and Simi come to for advice. Simi is an interesting character that I found myself reacting to most, even though she has done well for herself, her father still treats her as an inferior, as she’s a female who didn’t go onto bigger things and this can make for sad reading. She’s content in her life, busy in London whilst her husband works in New York but they still have a great relationship and proves that absence does make the heart grow fonder. Boo is a disgruntled woman, who’s bored and is tempted by the greener grass even though she has a husband who adores and her little girl is almost as outspoken as her!

All these characters bring something vibrant to make this story fun, sassy and poignant. It’s also an interesting insight into the Nigerian culture, particularly their mouth watering cuisines, fashion and tradition and how they had to adapt their lives with moving to the United Kingdom.

I’ve been drawn to this book for a while and when I was offered the chance to read it, I jumped at it. The cover is wonderfully rich and vibrant and its title just screams ‘read me’.

Wonderfully written and flows at pace that was impossible to put down, ‘Wahala’ is an addictive and intoxicating story about love, greed and obsession that can easily be consumed in one sitting and is a joy to read from the first page.

You can buy ‘Wahala’ from Amazon and is available to buy from good bookshops.

Wahala is an African word commonly used in Nigeria to express a state of worry, distress, problem or trouble. As you can see from the synopsis, Isobel is the main cause of this. The chapters alternate between Ronke, Simi and Boo and builds each of their stories and backgrounds. As the book progresses you can see what Isobel is doing which makes for a sometimes frustrating but absorbing read. All the characters have their flaws but I found that I still liked Ronke and Simi despite this. Boo on the other hand I did not like - I wanted to smack her in the face (Simi mentions wanting to do this at one point too but she doesn’t which is very disappointing!!) - but it’s great how they all had their own personalities and I still enjoyed Boo’s chapters. I loved the references to Nigeria, the food and the culture - something I would be keen to read and learn more about. An easy, enjoyable read!

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House UK for sending me an ARC of this book.

Oh my GOSH this book was INCREDIBLE!!!! it starts off a little slow but you start to get the idea. I loved all the girls and their different lives. I loved how you are rooting for some, hating others, SCREAMING abuse at some of them and in pure shock at the decisions they make.

I also just loved reading about Nigerian culture, the food, the language, the clothing! I learnt so much. I also found it so interesting that there were mixed race couples because thay added an extra element.

The writing was so captivating!!! I loved that the chapters were a good amount and you want to keep reading. Multiple POVs are my favourite thing!!!

I LOVEDDD this if you couldn't tell!!!

The plot of this really drew me in. I love the concept of a group of women who live seemingly ‘perfect’ lives and getting to see the behind the scenes of how they really are and seeing these facades fade away, and this book did not disappoint in bringing this alive.

I loved the relationships and friendships in this book, the characters were just so dynamic and I loved the way they interacted with each other. It was so fun getting to see these relationships truly tested throughout the book. We got to read this story through each of the women’s perspectives, something I always appreciate in a book, and I really enjoyed the back and forth, getting to read from each of these women’s points of view. It definitely added an extra layer to this story and was much better than if it had just been from one point of view.

Whilst I did enjoy this book overall, I had it pitched to me as a mystery/thriller which it definitely wasn’t, so I was a bit disappointed by that. It was definitely more contemporary with a slight twist, which I enjoyed. I just wish it had been pitched to me that way so I wasn’t waiting for twists that didn’t come.

That being said I absolutely flew through this book and loved the conversations that were had about race and class. They were impactful but often done in a witty and light-hearted way which I appreciated.

I would definitely recommend this book. I’ve seen it compared to Big Little Lies and definitely think it would be something you’d enjoy if you’ve read Liane Moriarty. It had the same slow-burn but dramatic plot that I think fans of hers would love, but from an Anglo-Nigerian perspective.

What a book!

I was surprised when the approval came through, but at the same time thrilled. I'd heard so much about this book and wanted to jump in on the hype. It lived up to it.

I was completely wrapped up in the characters and their lives. And you just know its good writing when you feel so strongly about a writer's characters. I haven't been this angry at a fictional character in so long, I was practically screaming at the book!

It has such twists and turns, lots of unexpected narrative but also understanding reading about women and a group of women - how everything makes sense and doesnt instantly.

Loved it.

When I first heard about Wahala I thought there was going to be more of a thriller aspect to it. After reading a few early reviews, I changed my expectations and I'm glad I did. While there is a thriller undertone, not much is really made of it until the end, so I would describe this as more of a drama. That said, I ended up really enjoying it. It follows three Anglo-Nigerian friends as they navigate their own lives, relationships and struggles. The addition of a fourth member to their group upsets the balance of their friendship and brings about suspicions, secrets and betrayals. I didn't particularly like three out of the four women but that just made them and their dynamic even more fascinating. I also really liked learning more about Nigerian culture and the experiences of modern mixed-race women in London. Overall this was a very enjoyable read about love, race and toxic friendships.

Great story, the characters were fab and relatable. Loved the way the friendships came together Couldnt put the book down x