Dele Weds Destiny

"But in real life, injustice was rife and inevitable. Life was fundamentally, cruelly, capriciously unfair. Jacob stole his blessing for Esau. G-d blessed Jacob anyway. The poor died young and the rich lived long, healthy, lives. [...] Heaven Enitan could take or leave, to be honest. The thought of worshipping G-d forever and ever scared her. What was forever anyway? But Hell.. Please let there be Hell."

Trigger warning: abortion, self harm, death.

Obaro delivered a breath-taking novel centred around three old friends, Enitan, Funmi and Zainab. The story flits between present day and the past, chronicling how the three met and their journey through adolescence at university, to who they became in the future.

The story focuses on three wildly different protagonists, from their religions, their morals and their histories. Every moment of joy was so beautiful and overdue, but every moment of suffering cut deeper than the last. I felt overwhelmed with certain plot themes, including the very graphic description of an abortion in the 1980's in Nigeria. The constant balancing act of seeking out true happiness against seeking out what is the best long term option was a fascinating juggling act to observe and seeing the long term results and fruits of the protagonists labours left me pondering my own life choices.

It's rare to find a book that speaks to you in a way that makes you reflect on your own choices. After reaching the end of the book, I found myself returning to the beginning again to really see how the stories of each character played out. I pondered how each individual changed and the possible driving factors. I really took the book further in my mind and invested myself in it, which is rare.

Thank you for such a beautiful story Tomi Obaro, and thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

This was a great read, filled with depth and details that spoke of friendship, love, and family. What worked really well for me was the use of the extensive flashback chapters in the middle, which took the tale of three friends in differing circumstances into more rich and absorbing tale. The flashbacks really helped to show how they had ended up in their current situations and made the ending more satisfying.

If anything, I would have liked a little more in the past, as I was enjoying so much of how they reacted to the various changes in each other's lives, but I can see how the choice of timings added to the emphasis on the three women together rather than their lives apart.

A recommended read!

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC

I love debut authors as you just don’t know what to expect and this was a real treat. Set in Nigeria three friends of thirty years meet to celebrate a wedding. The book explores where they are now but also the history of their friendship, how they met at university and how their lives diverged but how the friendship remains despite all the history between them. I enjoy reading books from cultures so different from my own and I loved these three women, their diversity but also their bond and support of each other at times of crisis. I laughed and cried over their life choices and how these affected them and their relationships with their daughters. I would thoroughly recommend this book and look forward to more from this author. Many thanks to Netgalley, Hodder and Stoughton for the opportunity of reading this ARC in return for an honest review.