Great read, I enjoyed the audiobook version and the narrators were great.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance copy in exchange for my honest feedback.

DELE WEDS DESTINY follows best friends Funmi, Enitan and Zainab as they reunite in Lagos, Nigeria after many years apart to celebrate the wedding of Funmi’s daughter, Destiny. If you love multigenerational novels that explore a culture through the highs and lows of friendship, motherhood and marriage then this is a book for you.

Told from each of the friends POV with timelines in both the present and past, I really enjoyed that we get to read all sides of their friendship. I was drawn into their lives through the secrets, disputes, envy to how they communicated and their bonds of trust. Each character brought unique dimensions to the story. I was particularly drawn to Funmi who was complex yet flawed, she suffered in different ways but had a strength that reflected in various ways throughout her life and shaped the way she mothered. Both Destiny and Remi (Enitan’s daughter) and the men that were in the MC’s lives introduced us to the generational impacts and cultural obligations of womanhood.

The depiction of Nigeria through it's political tension, relationship structures, tradition and culture was really nicely balanced and appreciated. There are also some serious themes that were handled with grace, from death, grief, political violence and pregnancy choices. I would have liked the ending more if we were given an epilogue, as it is, the conclusion of the story left a bit to the imagination and a bit of closure and/or drama would have been nice (I say more drama 😂).

This is such a warm representation of friendship and motherhood. I really liked the way Obaro builds up her characters through the way they are loved by their significant people. For example, we learn that a fussy and controlling character is actually the person her friends trust to give them grace when they’ve been messy. The reunion of the three university friends is really rich and complicated. We see what it means to love people and be tired of them at the same time. All the main characters are well-drawn and individual and somehow they’re friendship feels long-formed and deep. I just wish I knew them.

A story of three women, over three decades, we witness the shared histories, betrayals and triumphs play out, and their unforgettable, enduring friendship.
Audiobook version was joy to listen to.

This is a beautiful story of friendship set in Nigeria.

I think the blurb says it all, but there’s so much to love about this one and yet again, I find myself surprised it’s a debut! This is quite a wide-spanning story with multiple narrators and timelines, but the characters each have such a distinctive voice and personality that it never became confusing - and I especially loved the reflection of our main trio in their own children and the decisions they go on to make.

As you’d probably expect from a story primarily set in Lagos, this is vibrant, exciting and fascinating for someone like myself who’s never been or experienced a culture like it! As always, I was drooling over all the food and clothing descriptions and just wanted to be at the table eating and talking with this brilliant bunch of women!

Whilst there are plenty of uplifting moments, and the conversation between the friends is often very entertaining, it’s also quite an emotional story - with death, violence, divorce, abortion and many other strong themes. Definitely don’t go into it assuming it’s uplit because of that gorgeous bright cover, because it’s actually a bit of a tearjerker!

I just love stories like this with complex female friendships that span decades, and the location and different culture just made it even more compelling for me - an excellent debut!

I really enjoyed this wonderful Nigerian debut novel beautifully narrated by Tariye Peterside

Dele Weds Destiny follows the story of three college friends Enitan, Zainab, and Funm
who are brought back together for the wedding of one of their daughters. The story spans their lives across three decades and the timeline jumps around so that you get glimpse into their
before and after lives.

Each of the women has a very different life experience both before and after university and really distinct personalities and views which did at times make me wonder how they remained friends over time but through this slow burn story, you can see that their commitment to each other helps them all overcome the obstacles that they face.

I had read a review online which stated it was a very true reflection of Nigeria and I did leave the book with a desire to attend a Nigerian wedding which sounded absolutely incredible!

My only small griped was I wanted a clearer resolution at the end – I felt there were some strands that were left unfinished but that I suppose is sometimes a reflection of reality.

It was a captivating story of female friendship over time and if you like books about strong women then I’d recommend it.
Thank you #NetGalley for the audiobook to review.

The narrator did a superb job voicing these characters.

"A stunning novel of friendship, love and home "- is a great descriptor for this book.
The title makes it seem as though the events of the wedding are integral to this story taking place but I beg to differ. While the wedding is the catalyst for these friends reuniting again the main story of their mothers' friendship could have still taken place without that added layer. I had a good time with this and it was nice to follow older women reuniting and picking up where they left off in their younger years. It's a beautiful tale of friendship.

Dele weds destiny’ by Tomi Obaro

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4.5 out of 5 stars)

Is there anything better than coming across a wonderful debut novel ? That is exactly what this book is .

The timeline jumps from current time to past and back to current time . This normally frustrates me and is a massive pet peeve but in this book it just adds to the wonderful story.

I really love a strong female character and In this book I got 3! This is the story of three once-inseparable college friends in Nigeria who reunite in Lagos for the first time in thirty years.
I don’t want to give any spoilers away but this book explores so many themes that I found myself completely immersed in their world and the world of their daughters.
The vivid descriptions and easy to read writing styles were a complete delight.

The only slight issue I have with the story is that I wanted more . I wanted a resolution and hate it when a book is left without everything being resolved.

I experienced this book on kindle , audiobook and written book but found all of the versions were equally as compelling and would highly recommend the book on any of the three platforms .

This is a beautiful slow burn story , the perfect summer read. Even though it explores some quite dark themes in the plot you will find yourself completely unable to put the book down !
This is a book I feel certain I will reread many times in the future, and I feel with each reread there are bound to be new things I discover each time.

Dele Weds Destiny tells the story of 3 friends, Enitan, Zainab, and Funmi, who have managed to stay in touch since their university days and reunite years later for one of their daughter's weddings. I had the privilege of getting advance copies of both the audiobook and the physical book and bar a few discrepancies, it was a joy to listen along while reading the book.
The story jumps between the present and past as we learn more about how the women came to be friends, and how their past has informed their present selves. The novel touches on many themes, including friendship, family, sexuality, race and so much more with such depth and tenderness that made the book a joy to read. What really made the experience enjoyable was how the narrator, Tariye Peterside, was able to bring the characters to life and keep them distinct enough that their voices shone through. I would definitely recommend buying the audiobook as it really added to the tone and experience of the book!

Firstly let me say the title is a bit misleading. I get it. It’s a play on words & the marketing department are loving it …. but this is a book of female friendship spanning the generations & the wedding a mere bit part.

So gripe over, the author - a former Buzzfeed Culture Editor - has crafted a beautifully nuanced novel of the ways that friends for life are just that. Time & distance do not sever the bonds. Having just stood shoulder to shoulder with my friends at a funeral to support another friend who lives halfway across the globe, this story deeply resonated with me.

The words the writer uses “essentially sisters” echos my experience. We may only experience romantic love a few times in our lives but so much is written about it. The depth of sisterhood love is often what scaffolds us through life & yet less is written about it. So the focus of this novel is beautiful to me.

The three main protagonists Enitan, Zainab & Funmi were each other’s rocks during University. But they have never been together since.

The story builds to the wedding of Dele & Destiny. As the three women build their way to this big Nigerian affair we learn what has happened to them in the intervening years. How their lives have diverged & yet their bonds remain.

Although such a story could have been set in any place & culture we get a beautiful portrayal of Nigeria in this book. I also feel I should have written down all the Nigerian authors who are mentioned alongside Western authors & Mills & Boon - who we may deride but we forget how many millions of books they sell across the World.

This is a captivating portrayal of sisterhood & charming portrait of Nigeria.

Narration of this book was so good, brought the book alive for me and easily followed the storyline, I may have struggled to follow the different characters in the two timelines otherwise. Full of cultural, female life choices and dilemmas this book is set in Nigeria and starts with the university years and ends with marriages and settling down. Lovely read about three girls coming of age. Thank you #NetGalley for the audiobook to review.

An absolutely ‘right down my street and up my alley’ kind of read for me.

I listened to this on audiobook and found it very entertaining and compulsive listening.

Dele Weds Destiny. Three women brought together again after many years at the celebration of this wedding.
We have the past, a middle and up to date the present here and now.
I loved the gossip, I loved finding out about each character.

The strength of these women shone through this book and I just loved it!
The women took whatever life threw at them, knuckled down, heads to the storm and walked right through out the other end…..this shows how strong us women can be.

Female friendships.
There are no friendships that are perfect is there?
We all have flaws, secrets and anxieties this is portrayed within these three main characters.

They are now in they’re 40’s with daughters of their own. I’m glad that wasn’t delved into as I enjoyed getting to know them both in their teenage years as well as in their 40’s

If you like reading about strong women, friendships realistically I’d highly recommend this.

Thank you NetGalley and Tobi Obaro for providing me with this AudioBook in exchange for my honest review.

I enjoyed this book so much! It's one of the most colorful books I've read this year and would definitely want to read more and more of the author..
The descriptions and settings of the book, add to it the amazing narration and I'm hooked to it the whole day!!

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

I had this conversation with my mother a few days back, about not getting married or wanting to end an engagement just before the marriage ceremony. The conversation was her telling me how she wished she had talked to her parents on time because she knew at her engagement this is not what she wanted but she did not have the courage for it. My question was that, if I did that would they be fine with it? And my mum said, "If at any time you feel in a relationship, that you are unsafe or unhappy or this is not something you want, you come to me and we'll figure it out."
As someone who is from a culture that thinks more about what people think than their own happiness, hearing that was so good, I felt relieved. Seeing Destiny going from being the meek person to standing up for herself was heartwarming. Seeing the support she had from her mother's friends made me happy.

The friendships in this book are probably my favourite part, mostly because platonic relationships have a special place in my heart.

Tomi Obaro’s debut novel “Dele Weds Destiny” gives a glimpse into the social and cultural climate of Nigeria through the eyes of three friends: Funmi, Enitan, and Zainab. Even though the story spans across three decades, the stories shared by the 3 friends is captivating and gives the feeling that the reader is right there in the heart of events, living the story!

Each of the three women has a very clearly defined personality and unique background stories, which the reader / listener is invited to discover through the audiobook. for a debut novel, the language and stories might have a powerful impact, as it depicts sequences from the tumultuous part of the country, along with multiple forms of trauma (death, multiple types of abuse, or self harm) experienced by the main characters.

Story wise, the narrative is split in smaller portions depicting events from the past (school days of the girls) and current events (Destiny’s wedding, the get-together of the 3 friends) which are told in a non-chronological order, to better suit the behaviors of the characters. The only thing which surprised me was the ending, which is left open, and I can’t tell if it was an error or the intention of the author & publishing team. (The chapters are also missing audio files numbered 32 & 33) Had it not been for this sudden ending, the book would have been closer to receiving a 5-star rating.

Special thanks to NetGalley, Hodder & Stoughton, Hodder Studio, and the editorial team for giving me the opportunity to review the ARC in audiobook format and to you, my reader, for taking the time to read this honest personal book review.

If you are interested in other of my book reviews, make sure to follow me on GoodReads!

#LifeLongLearning #DeleWedsDestiny #NetGalley

This is one of those cases where the blurb for novel spoils said novel. Rather than giving us a broad-stroke summary of the story, the blurb reveals almost every plotline in the story, so while I was actually reading the novel myself, and I kept expecting something ‘new’ to happen, well, I ended up feeling rather underwhelmed. That is not to say that Dele Weds Destiny is not a good debut, I mean, I didn't love it, but I recognise that the writing is competent, the dialogues are (for the most part) charged, and the setting is strongly rendered. Alas, the storyline just doesn’t offer much besides what is mentioned in the blurb. I can see this appealing to fans of Liane Moriarty or books like Nikki May's Wahala, where a group of friends reunite as adults, with some of them being married, others having children or wanting children, and others still are career-focused…I was hoping for Tomi Obaro to add something new to this rather tired premise but the dynamic Funmi, Enitan, and Zainab, the three Nigerian women whose friendship is meant to be the core of the novel, is sadly fairly one-note. The narrative very much reminded me of my least favourite novel by Elif Shafak's Three Daughters of Eve, which also presents us with an older woman looking back to her time at university where she (supposedly) became friends with two very different girls (one is more conservative, the other seems to embrace a more liberal lifestyle). In both books the girls don't really strike me as real friends...

The first 40% of the narrative introduces us to former college friends Funmi, Enitan, and Zainab, who are now in their middle-age, as they reunite in Lagos to celebrate Funmi’s daughter’s wedding. As we follow Enitan and Zainab making their way to Funmi’s house, we are given an understanding of their current circumstances: Enitan, who is based in New York, and her husband Chalres, a white American, are getting divorced and their teenage daughter, Remi, now resents her, but not their father; Zainab’s has become a carer to her older husband Ahmed, after he suffered two strokes. Funmi seems to enjoy a lavish lifestyle and is not interested in asking her husband about his ‘shady’ business. Her daughter, Destiny, is by all appearances a devoted daughter, who is respectful of her elders and fulfilling the life her parents want her to. But Funmi wishes that she could have a more meaningful relationship with her, as Destiny seems to hold her at a distance.
The story in this first part is very slow going, and a bit too heavy on exposition.

The middle section of the novel takes us back to their crucial college days, where we are given an impression of 1980s Nigeria's climate of social and political unease as well as a more detailed impression of the friends’ respective upbringing and social statuses. Now, I wanted to see the friendship evolve slowly, as they find themselves putting aside assumptions they may have made upon first meeting one another, or bond over shared commonalities…but the narrative kind of skips over that. Their friendship struck me as one of convenience, and to be honest, even putting that aside, their bond… was not that much of a friendship even. Funmi and Zainab are obviously at odds, and they seemed far more involved with their respective men than anything or anyone else. Enitan was the classic inoffensive go-between whose characterisation also ends up getting sidelined in favor of introducing us to Charles. The men themselves were forgettable, and I didn’t really care for them or their supposed feelings for our protagonists.
Anyway, I kept thinking that this ‘then’ section would unearth something more than what the summary had detailed but no, not really. So I was kind of frustrated by it having to occupy such a big chunk of the narrative, as it doesn’t reveal anything new or flesh out the characters either.

The final section takes us back to the present where the narrative obviously parallels the experiences of their children with their ones at college. I wouldn’t have minded the focus on mother/daughter dynamics if said daughters had been credible. Destiny is the dutiful daughter, who is prepared to give up her dreams to live the kind of life her parents want her to (marrying the ‘right’ man, getting the ‘right’ degree). Remi is the kind of simplistic teenage girl that I have sadly come across one too many times in adult/literary fiction. This teenage girl often blames her mother for her marriage troubles (in some cases even if the dad cheated on her or worse). She has this supposedly liberal mindset and cares about social issues but when she goes to a different country or enters a different community or comes across people more disadvantaged than she is she will reveal how ignorant she is when it comes to politics, history, etc. If she’s rich or spending time with rich people she will act all outraged by their having cleaners or whatnot but then she isn't even capable of washing her own clothes or cleaning her room. If she blocks a toilet she will not think to unblock it herself but ask her mum for help…this girl inevitably has an eating disorder, or sometimes she self-harms because that’s what teenage girls do nowadays. I am just tired of reading about this kind of caricature of a teenage girl…Remi was embarrassingly childish and petty, the way she behaved towards her mother is so f*cking frustrating and I don’t understand why adult women portray teenage girls as so superficial and unlikable, whereas they will give other characters both flaws & virtues. Argh.
Also, I kept thinking that Dele and Destiny would play more of a role given that they are the ones mentioned in the title but they do not.

Anyway, Remi aside, the characters were okay. They weren't particularly nuanced but then again given the Liane Moriarty-esque premise I was expecting in-depth character studies. But this book lacks the in-group tension and the gossipy atmosphere that make Moriarty's books into such easily entertaining, sometimes even gripping, escapades. It's, by all means, an okay debut novel. I just wanted more drama, more friendship, just more.

Now for some positives: as I said, Obaro's dialogues and setting were for the most part evocative, and I particularly enjoyed her insights into past & present Nigerian culture. I also appreciated that she doesn't moralise or judge her main characters. They are not perfect, and sometimes they act or say things that are downright yikes, but, she never judges them for their choices & attitudes (to have casual sex, to wait to have sex until you are married, to find contentment in being a housewife, to be silly and romantic, to be studious and serious). She may poke fun at them, especially when they are being a bit hypocritical or whatever, but she's playful, never cruel.

If you are interested in this I encourage you to read more positive reviews as this may as well be your next great read.
Also, whoever is responsible for that summary...maybe next time don't give all of the book away.