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Necessary Fiction
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR!
From the acclaimed author of Vagabonds!: an audacious and eye-opening exploration of cross-generational queer life in Nigeria.
What makes a family? How is it defined and by whom? Is freedom for everyone?
In Necessary Fiction, Eloghosa Osunde poses these provocative questions and many more while exploring the paths and dreams, hopes and fears of more than two dozen characters who are staking out lives for themselves in contemporary Nigeria.
Across Lagos, one of Africa's largest urban areas and one of the world's most dynamic cities, Osunde’s characters seek out love for self and their chosen partners, even as they risk ruining relationships with parents, spouses, family, and friends. As the novel unfolds, a rolling cast vibrantly active, stubbornly alive, brazenly flawed. These characters grapple with desire, fear, time, death, and God, forming and breaking unexpected connections; in the process unveiling how they know each other, have loved each other, and had their hearts broken in that pursuit.
As they work to establish themselves in the city's lively worlds of art, music, entertainment, and creative commerce, we meet their collective and individual attempts to reckon with the necessary fiction they carry for survival.
From the acclaimed author of Vagabonds!: an audacious and eye-opening exploration of cross-generational queer life in Nigeria.
What makes a family? How is it defined and by whom? Is freedom for everyone?
In Necessary Fiction, Eloghosa Osunde poses these provocative questions and many more while exploring the paths and dreams, hopes and fears of more than two dozen characters who are staking out lives for themselves in contemporary Nigeria.
Across Lagos, one of Africa's largest urban areas and one of the world's most dynamic cities, Osunde’s characters seek out love for self and their chosen partners, even as they risk ruining relationships with parents, spouses, family, and friends. As the novel unfolds, a rolling cast vibrantly active, stubbornly alive, brazenly flawed. These characters grapple with desire, fear, time, death, and God, forming and breaking unexpected connections; in the process unveiling how they know each other, have loved each other, and had their hearts broken in that pursuit.
As they work to establish themselves in the city's lively worlds of art, music, entertainment, and creative commerce, we meet their collective and individual attempts to reckon with the necessary fiction they carry for survival.
315 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 22, 2025
109 people are currently reading
5604 people want to read
About the author
Eloghosa Osunde
8 books166 followersEloghosa Osunde is a Nigerian writer and multidisciplinary artist.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 91 reviews
April 12, 2025
WOW... I finished Necessary Fiction and I was blown away by how tender the writing is and how beautifully crafted the characters are. The author created a story about a group of friends in Nigeria who are their own chosen family. We see why they needed to leave some relationships behind and hold space for each other. I loved it all.
July 7, 2025
I am so overdue for one of those books that is so wonderful that I have to slow down while reading to savor every word of it—and that is exactly what Eloghosa Osunde's Necessary Fiction offers. Necessary Fiction is one of those novel-ish short story collections (or short story collection-ish novels). It's sent in present day Nigeria, mostly Lagos, and features a wide range of gay/lesbian/queer/nonbinary characters. Most of the characters come from families wealthy enough that they're not concerned with making a living, but those who are not prove to be ingenious in figuring out services that seem to become essential as soon as they're offered/invented.
This book makes demands of readers. Good demands. First, because it includes a wide range of characters, some of whom go by more than one name over the course of the book. The reader has to do some detective work at times to know which character is at the heart of a particular chapter. There are a few chapters I'm still not sure of, but I wasn't troubled by that. Reading this book is like finding a sprinkling of gems in a vacant lot. You may miss some, but the ones you find are genuine treasures.
Sections of the book are also written in dialect—sometimes just the occasional sentence, sometimes whole passages. Still, as long as one is able to embrace not being able to grasp every nuance of every statement this doesn't need to be a problem. Sometimes one can understand the gist of things. Sometimes one is utterly befuddled. But this sort of befuddlement has a value all its own. It puts one on the outside looking in, which can be quite a healthy vantage point for a reader. The reader is not the center of the universe. Sometimes characters aren't there simply to be unfolded before readers. And the dialect is just plain beautiful. And gems in a vacant lot.
If you like queer fiction, if you like books that are adventurous in terms of style and structure, you're in for a huge treat with Necessary Fiction. Keep an eye out for it (release date 7/22/25), grab a copy as soon as you can, then read it slowly and let yourself experience embracing what you may not completely understand.
I received an electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own.
This book makes demands of readers. Good demands. First, because it includes a wide range of characters, some of whom go by more than one name over the course of the book. The reader has to do some detective work at times to know which character is at the heart of a particular chapter. There are a few chapters I'm still not sure of, but I wasn't troubled by that. Reading this book is like finding a sprinkling of gems in a vacant lot. You may miss some, but the ones you find are genuine treasures.
Sections of the book are also written in dialect—sometimes just the occasional sentence, sometimes whole passages. Still, as long as one is able to embrace not being able to grasp every nuance of every statement this doesn't need to be a problem. Sometimes one can understand the gist of things. Sometimes one is utterly befuddled. But this sort of befuddlement has a value all its own. It puts one on the outside looking in, which can be quite a healthy vantage point for a reader. The reader is not the center of the universe. Sometimes characters aren't there simply to be unfolded before readers. And the dialect is just plain beautiful. And gems in a vacant lot.
If you like queer fiction, if you like books that are adventurous in terms of style and structure, you're in for a huge treat with Necessary Fiction. Keep an eye out for it (release date 7/22/25), grab a copy as soon as you can, then read it slowly and let yourself experience embracing what you may not completely understand.
I received an electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own.
Want to read
June 21, 2025I just received an ARC of Necessary Fiction in the mail! I’m excited to start it 🥰 happy pride!! 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
Read
June 22, 2025Vagabonds! was one of the best queer novels of 2022 for me, and I was excited to read this new Osunde novel. Similar to Vagabonds! in both structure and content, Necessary Fiction introduces a large set of characters who are queer in the broadest sense of the word. This is its bane and boon, as it requires intense attention. On the other hand, it is also a necessary move to construct a particular ontopolitics of multiplicity that enables queer forms of life to thrive. In addition to the multitude of characters, the text itself has a particular Osunde vibrancy (as in Vagabonds!). I would even call it queer vitalism, which grants the characters life in naturecultures that are not always benevolent and are often constrictive. This is not always enjoyable, especially since Osunde works to create depth for the characters, which often lost me, but in those depths lies queer vitality that resists all attempts to diminish it.
August 25, 2025
Another reviewer said they found the book very "tender" and I can see why. We follow a group of friends in the LGBT community in Lagos, their relationships, their struggles, their friendships... Each part of the book focuses on one character (and there are many of them: over a dozen!), and is like a mini-character study. I liked the minutiae of it, the details, the back and forth between characters, the falling outs and the reconciliations. It was a beautiful book, quite slow paced and without too much of a plot at times, beautifully written and with an interesting format.
Free ARC sent by Netgalley.
Free ARC sent by Netgalley.
July 26, 2025
I really loved Vagabonds, to the point where I immediately got this only knowing the author and title. Like the author's first book, it isn't one you can read casually. You have to pay attention, listen closely, but that's a terrific thing. I'm very glad I bought Vagabonds back when it first came out... it'll make it easy and affordable to make sure I have all her books on my shelf as she keeps writing.
July 18, 2025
Thanks to publisher for advance reading copy
I’ve read this before. Does that mean this novel touches on something universal? Or does it mean it’s been done and said enough times already? If the latter, what does that imply about the title of this one?
Stories inspired by poetry: The thin strings and webs that connected the narratives dodged me a little bit—it’s really just a kaleidoscopic look at queer life in Nigeria via a large cast of characters in and out of each others’ lives. This book could have been marketed as a short story collection and I’d have never once questioned it.
I did appreciate the use of Pidgin mixed in the dialogue throughout. It made each of the characters come to life. It’s just that this novel doesn’t have the usual big narrative backdrop in and around them to contrast with, making the characters’ hard-won fullness of voice and emotion just sort of echo in an empty room. There’s probably an obscure metaphor we could pull from that if we needed to.
In conclusion, it’s hard to draw a solid line on whether this was good or not—it’s got a lot going on. Forgive this extended comparison, but this novel felt like a constellation someone points out “oh that’s a (whatever animal)” and I look and look and can’t really see it and then when they draw it out on a map of the sky for me it’s just some lines connecting in sort of uninteresting ways. To me, it takes a big stretch of the imagination to make those dots come together into one big bizarre complex organism like a turtle or a bear… or here a novel.
Also, for those who it annoys (you know who you are) prepare for this novel to pretty much literally explain its title out loud very early on in a way that totally takes you out of the reading if you’re not ready for that kinda thing.
I’ve read this before. Does that mean this novel touches on something universal? Or does it mean it’s been done and said enough times already? If the latter, what does that imply about the title of this one?
Stories inspired by poetry: The thin strings and webs that connected the narratives dodged me a little bit—it’s really just a kaleidoscopic look at queer life in Nigeria via a large cast of characters in and out of each others’ lives. This book could have been marketed as a short story collection and I’d have never once questioned it.
I did appreciate the use of Pidgin mixed in the dialogue throughout. It made each of the characters come to life. It’s just that this novel doesn’t have the usual big narrative backdrop in and around them to contrast with, making the characters’ hard-won fullness of voice and emotion just sort of echo in an empty room. There’s probably an obscure metaphor we could pull from that if we needed to.
In conclusion, it’s hard to draw a solid line on whether this was good or not—it’s got a lot going on. Forgive this extended comparison, but this novel felt like a constellation someone points out “oh that’s a (whatever animal)” and I look and look and can’t really see it and then when they draw it out on a map of the sky for me it’s just some lines connecting in sort of uninteresting ways. To me, it takes a big stretch of the imagination to make those dots come together into one big bizarre complex organism like a turtle or a bear… or here a novel.
Also, for those who it annoys (you know who you are) prepare for this novel to pretty much literally explain its title out loud very early on in a way that totally takes you out of the reading if you’re not ready for that kinda thing.
August 4, 2025
This book gives a really honest and personal look at queer found family life in Lagos, Nigeria while diving into what it means to live your truth in a world that often tries to erase you. The story doesn’t follow a typical plot but instead jumps between different characters, kind of like snapshots of their lives and struggles with things like parental shame and chosen family.
I will say the stories didn't always connect in a way that felt like one solid novel. It’s more like a collection of linked stories. It reminded me a bit of Little Rot by Akwaeke Emezi, but with a lighter, more hopeful vibe.
Fair warning, the book spells out its title pretty early on, which might throw some people off. Overall, it’s a messy but interesting read that I think will really speak to people, even if it doesn’t quite fit the usual novel mold.
I will say the stories didn't always connect in a way that felt like one solid novel. It’s more like a collection of linked stories. It reminded me a bit of Little Rot by Akwaeke Emezi, but with a lighter, more hopeful vibe.
Fair warning, the book spells out its title pretty early on, which might throw some people off. Overall, it’s a messy but interesting read that I think will really speak to people, even if it doesn’t quite fit the usual novel mold.
November 5, 2025
FOR YOU, WHO CHOSE LIFE!!!! I didn’t know it was possible to string words together that way. WHAT THE FFFFFFF. This book redefined love and family for me. It forced so many things to the surface. One of my favorite books I’ve ever read in my life. The music! The dancing! The art! The companionship! The author talks about love as a kind of mercy, and I think this book showed me mercy at a time in my life I needed it terribly. I’m so grateful.
November 20, 2025
No one writes queerness like Eloghosa Osunde, maybe just Akwaeke Emezi. Anyway, another cast of characters I will miss and lots of bittersweet feelings.
July 29, 2025
29/07/2025
I know I will review my rating after I’ve fully digested the book
I have read both Vagabonds! and now, necessary fiction and my queen is very talented
I enjoyed this more than vagabonds!
Between us girls, I cannot tell you what that book was about but it was fun.
I think it is extremely important to have literature that shows queer normative relationships. In the lives of the friends and the older characters
Often times, in African literature specifically, the queer characters always have some sort of shame or terrible trauma befall them because of their sexuality.
While this is a reality for the queer community, it is also very important that queer joy and everydayness is also shown.
I enjoyed how the friends had their own community. Once again proving that friendship will indeed save your life!
I also love Eloghosa’s, as the girls say it, command of language. Like I would click my fingers when one of the narrators drop a bar 🤏🏿🤏🏿🤏🏿🤏🏿
I lowkey wish I read with my eyes so I could highlight but I plan on rereading sometime in the future. I decided on the audiobook because it had multiple narrators so my expectations were high. Shout out to her for also giving us narrators that were Nigerian and read the book authentically. It was very Nigerian(complementary)
I also love the fact that in fiction, there is always an element of history. While the Nigerian government tried to sweep the tragedy that occurred in 2020 at the toll gate during end sars, a number of authors have included it in their work of fiction and have immortalised the incident. We will never forget
Now unto my issues. They are very small however they bothered me very deeply hence my rating at the moment
EYE was under the impression that different narrators will narrate their respective characters. This was not the case and that made me confused? Like we would be, for example talking about Maro and one narrator is reading his part, next thing another narrator picks up from where the former left off??? I don’t get why it was done like that. It would take time for me to adjust again.
Secondly, I lost momentum towards the end because I was sort of over the quote unquote therapy speak. Maybe I’m just not healed enough for that
I know I will review my rating after I’ve fully digested the book
I have read both Vagabonds! and now, necessary fiction and my queen is very talented
I enjoyed this more than vagabonds!
Between us girls, I cannot tell you what that book was about but it was fun.
I think it is extremely important to have literature that shows queer normative relationships. In the lives of the friends and the older characters
Often times, in African literature specifically, the queer characters always have some sort of shame or terrible trauma befall them because of their sexuality.
While this is a reality for the queer community, it is also very important that queer joy and everydayness is also shown.
I enjoyed how the friends had their own community. Once again proving that friendship will indeed save your life!
I also love Eloghosa’s, as the girls say it, command of language. Like I would click my fingers when one of the narrators drop a bar 🤏🏿🤏🏿🤏🏿🤏🏿
I lowkey wish I read with my eyes so I could highlight but I plan on rereading sometime in the future. I decided on the audiobook because it had multiple narrators so my expectations were high. Shout out to her for also giving us narrators that were Nigerian and read the book authentically. It was very Nigerian(complementary)
I also love the fact that in fiction, there is always an element of history. While the Nigerian government tried to sweep the tragedy that occurred in 2020 at the toll gate during end sars, a number of authors have included it in their work of fiction and have immortalised the incident. We will never forget
Now unto my issues. They are very small however they bothered me very deeply hence my rating at the moment
EYE was under the impression that different narrators will narrate their respective characters. This was not the case and that made me confused? Like we would be, for example talking about Maro and one narrator is reading his part, next thing another narrator picks up from where the former left off??? I don’t get why it was done like that. It would take time for me to adjust again.
Secondly, I lost momentum towards the end because I was sort of over the quote unquote therapy speak. Maybe I’m just not healed enough for that
July 2, 2025
Wow, this was such a wonderful read. I've never read anything like it and yet gave me the same feelings some of my favorite books have given me. This book is Black joy, queer love, art, friendship and found family. I really enjoyed its multi-generational layers and you gradually see the connections between the portraits of each character.
This book will be huge, I can feel it!
This book will be huge, I can feel it!
July 24, 2025
We tell ourselves the necessary fictions that help us survive, our body contorting under the pills and potions ingested to cope. The intoxication strokes our biological clock reassuringly. Our obligations to society and legacy fade to black. A reprieve. The freedom we seek seems to only come to us in our dreams, while high. We wake up and tell a lie, a forced mantra to plant our feet in the direction of the hustle. We must survive. To catch one slipping is a weakness.
ELOGHOSA OSUNDE’s writing is the prize, and NECESSARY FICTION is a truth I want yelled in every room.
I was in awe of the choices Osunde had to make for the structure of this novel. I closed, feeling as if a film was lifted from my eyes. I could touch Maro, Ziz, Tega, Aunty G, Awele, Yemisi. They felt corporeal, a queer life bustling in a city…home where living authentically out of the closet is not possible.
Lagos from the mouths/eyes of this Truth Circle was UNMATCHED to read. “Everyone knows that city is a beast. Lagos is not free” (215). Fire. These characters were sexy, funny, vulnerable, dangerous, cunning, flirty, creative, etc. Just straight GOATs I wouldn’t hesitate to befriend in some muggy club or art gallery.
“None of us really know how we found each other, children of parents who forget to have mercy” (159).
Osunde’s writing is the yearning to be our full selves, to not hide in the face of rejection. NECESSARY FICTION is the lifelong grief felt when you choose you, a found family, a community that feels like a second skin. This novel is the piano intro to bomb amapiano song, a shiny black latex dress, free-form locs shaking in the sun, new beginnings cresting before a rollercoaster drop, a freedom outside of home and self, a definitive choosing to preserve self then play savior to abusive parents.
thank you @riverheadbooks for gifting me this opportunity to read in advance (#ARC). I am blessed to have experienced a read so hypnotic during a period where I’m craving to be swept away. NECESSARY FICTION published yesterday (07/22) so don’t play and cop like now now.
“Good boy” 🤏🏾
ELOGHOSA OSUNDE’s writing is the prize, and NECESSARY FICTION is a truth I want yelled in every room.
I was in awe of the choices Osunde had to make for the structure of this novel. I closed, feeling as if a film was lifted from my eyes. I could touch Maro, Ziz, Tega, Aunty G, Awele, Yemisi. They felt corporeal, a queer life bustling in a city…home where living authentically out of the closet is not possible.
Lagos from the mouths/eyes of this Truth Circle was UNMATCHED to read. “Everyone knows that city is a beast. Lagos is not free” (215). Fire. These characters were sexy, funny, vulnerable, dangerous, cunning, flirty, creative, etc. Just straight GOATs I wouldn’t hesitate to befriend in some muggy club or art gallery.
“None of us really know how we found each other, children of parents who forget to have mercy” (159).
Osunde’s writing is the yearning to be our full selves, to not hide in the face of rejection. NECESSARY FICTION is the lifelong grief felt when you choose you, a found family, a community that feels like a second skin. This novel is the piano intro to bomb amapiano song, a shiny black latex dress, free-form locs shaking in the sun, new beginnings cresting before a rollercoaster drop, a freedom outside of home and self, a definitive choosing to preserve self then play savior to abusive parents.
thank you @riverheadbooks for gifting me this opportunity to read in advance (#ARC). I am blessed to have experienced a read so hypnotic during a period where I’m craving to be swept away. NECESSARY FICTION published yesterday (07/22) so don’t play and cop like now now.
“Good boy” 🤏🏾
July 30, 2025
Thank you to 4th Estate for a proof copy of this book.
Firstly, I need to warn you that this book will have you in your feelings!! Don't pick this one up if you're looking for a light, fluffy read. But please do pick it up at some point!!
With quite a large cast of characters, this novel examines the lives of queer folks in contemporary Nigeria. Thankfully, you're able to remind yourself of who's who with a helpful list!
Eloghosa Osunde's Necessary Fiction is a visceral meditation on queerness, liberation, and the quiet (and loud) rebellions we carry in our bodies. Blending essay, autofiction, memoir, and metaphysical musings, this isn't just a read—it’s an experience.
Layers of identity and imagination, centering queer African lives are tenderly peeled back with a radical honesty. The language is lush and lyrical. It is dense in places, but deliberately so— you need to slow down, to sit with discomfort, to question what stories we’re allowed to tell, and who gets to tell them.
While not an “easy” read (and that’s part of its power), it's so rewarding. Annotators, get your tabs at the ready because there were so many gems and moments that gave way to pause for thought. At times poetic, other times raw, the writing kept delivering a steady flow of emotion, resistance, and deep-rooted truth.
A necessary, beautifully unique offering at insists on the possibility of freedom—through language, through fiction, through fierce self-definition.
Firstly, I need to warn you that this book will have you in your feelings!! Don't pick this one up if you're looking for a light, fluffy read. But please do pick it up at some point!!
With quite a large cast of characters, this novel examines the lives of queer folks in contemporary Nigeria. Thankfully, you're able to remind yourself of who's who with a helpful list!
Eloghosa Osunde's Necessary Fiction is a visceral meditation on queerness, liberation, and the quiet (and loud) rebellions we carry in our bodies. Blending essay, autofiction, memoir, and metaphysical musings, this isn't just a read—it’s an experience.
Layers of identity and imagination, centering queer African lives are tenderly peeled back with a radical honesty. The language is lush and lyrical. It is dense in places, but deliberately so— you need to slow down, to sit with discomfort, to question what stories we’re allowed to tell, and who gets to tell them.
While not an “easy” read (and that’s part of its power), it's so rewarding. Annotators, get your tabs at the ready because there were so many gems and moments that gave way to pause for thought. At times poetic, other times raw, the writing kept delivering a steady flow of emotion, resistance, and deep-rooted truth.
A necessary, beautifully unique offering at insists on the possibility of freedom—through language, through fiction, through fierce self-definition.
July 24, 2025
These characters, this writing, putting these stories on these pages, really took my breath away. Stunning!
October 16, 2025
5+ stars. Audio Gold!
July 28, 2025
Thank you Riverhead books for mailing me an ARC of this book!!
FIVE STARS! I've read a lot of books this year and not one of them can compare to this novel. This story takes place in Nigeria, mainly in Lagos. The main theme is found family and we see how a lot of these characters are not accepted by their blood family. The relationships they form with each other is beautiful. The PROSE is top tier. There are a ton of characters in this book and the pacing of these stories is quick. So many characters stand out to me. I loved this book and can't wait to recommend it.
FIVE STARS! I've read a lot of books this year and not one of them can compare to this novel. This story takes place in Nigeria, mainly in Lagos. The main theme is found family and we see how a lot of these characters are not accepted by their blood family. The relationships they form with each other is beautiful. The PROSE is top tier. There are a ton of characters in this book and the pacing of these stories is quick. So many characters stand out to me. I loved this book and can't wait to recommend it.
August 2, 2025
Thank you to Riverhad for the advanced copy. Vagabonds! was one of my top reads of 2022, and I was eager to dive into Osunde's newest.
Necessary Fiction explores the stories we tell ourselves—and the stories that create ourselves. Like Vagabonds! it is told mostly through interconnected short stories, this time weaving in and out of a queer friend group in Lagos. While spirits do make an occasional appearance here, they are not nearly as central as in Vagabonds!. Still Osunde’s voice is full of magic when exploring these characters’ lives. The friend group itself in some ways is the spirit, and as a reader we get a peek into the vastness of it. And it is almost like we are being welcomed into the group over the course of the novel, being introduced to members’ histories in fragmented pieces, learning a story that has continued to build as a collective over the years. A story that is not told in an easy, linear way. With language that is practically poetry with lines like “rebels with strong knees,” the voice manages to be both lethargic and reflective, but also incredibly urgent. Full of promise and pain.
The character study and reflections are the main driver here. There is an extensive cast of characters, and the narrative trusts us to keep up as we weave in and out of them. I will admit, especially at the beginning, I did appreciate the character list so I could double-check myself on relationships as we switched between points-of-view. We follow our main modern friend group, but we also explore how they’ve been shaped by their parents, with occasional peaks into the lives, and disappointments, that lead to the present pains, predominantly around expectations and expressions of queer identity throughout the generations. And while there is triumph in writing a story in spite of this, there is also grief to be explored in both the before and how it bleeds into the present. And, especially in part 1, I enjoyed the explorations of how there is no space for loud grief in the city, especially with Maro. And this novel makes room for the fullness of that emotion with understanding, in some ways serving as a purging of that emotion, while still feeling tempered. This is not a book I rushed myself through but one I allowed myself to experience in small sips, letting the full spectrum wash over me. And, ultimately, this is about what makes a family, the families we’re born into and the families we find.
YouTube thoughts: https://youtu.be/C2rlBk4CcOU
Necessary Fiction explores the stories we tell ourselves—and the stories that create ourselves. Like Vagabonds! it is told mostly through interconnected short stories, this time weaving in and out of a queer friend group in Lagos. While spirits do make an occasional appearance here, they are not nearly as central as in Vagabonds!. Still Osunde’s voice is full of magic when exploring these characters’ lives. The friend group itself in some ways is the spirit, and as a reader we get a peek into the vastness of it. And it is almost like we are being welcomed into the group over the course of the novel, being introduced to members’ histories in fragmented pieces, learning a story that has continued to build as a collective over the years. A story that is not told in an easy, linear way. With language that is practically poetry with lines like “rebels with strong knees,” the voice manages to be both lethargic and reflective, but also incredibly urgent. Full of promise and pain.
The character study and reflections are the main driver here. There is an extensive cast of characters, and the narrative trusts us to keep up as we weave in and out of them. I will admit, especially at the beginning, I did appreciate the character list so I could double-check myself on relationships as we switched between points-of-view. We follow our main modern friend group, but we also explore how they’ve been shaped by their parents, with occasional peaks into the lives, and disappointments, that lead to the present pains, predominantly around expectations and expressions of queer identity throughout the generations. And while there is triumph in writing a story in spite of this, there is also grief to be explored in both the before and how it bleeds into the present. And, especially in part 1, I enjoyed the explorations of how there is no space for loud grief in the city, especially with Maro. And this novel makes room for the fullness of that emotion with understanding, in some ways serving as a purging of that emotion, while still feeling tempered. This is not a book I rushed myself through but one I allowed myself to experience in small sips, letting the full spectrum wash over me. And, ultimately, this is about what makes a family, the families we’re born into and the families we find.
YouTube thoughts: https://youtu.be/C2rlBk4CcOU
July 14, 2025
Necessary Fiction by Eloghosa Osunde is a Communion of Truth. It demands that we slow down, listen deeply, and absorb not only what is said, but what is felt. And like all true communions, it leaves you transformed.
“I tell people all the time, street na electric, anybody fit shock you. So when you find your people, the ones wey go ride for you till this world fold, commit to them like it’s a religion.”
Set in Nigeria, this novel, told in stories, follows the lives of cross-generational queer people and their experiences. At the heart of the novel is a community of characters navigating the space between necessary lies and liberating truths.
We meet Ziz, a serial entrepreneur with schemes both absurd and brilliant, ranging from actors-for-hire to fake travel souvenirs. Ziz embodies the hustle, satire, and heartbreak of a world that demands constant reinvention. His closest friends include Maro, a grieving son mourning his father's death and complex legacy; Akin, a quiet musician whose emotional range is often played out through sound rather than speech. Characters like May, Akin, Ayinke, Ajimobi, Aunty G, the twins, Awele, and Yesimi carry with them not just stories but spiritual weight.
"...Silence is a blessing, silence is safe, silence is calming, silence is full of love, silence is goodness resting, silence is music. Silence is for me, silence has great potential, silence is vast and humbling. Silence is complete, silence is true, silence is prayer."
Eloghosa invites us to a communion with her characters. In silence, they ask us to sit with their pain, their joys, and their rebellion until their truth becomes inseparable from our own. Yet with all the heaviness presented, the novel is suffused with tenderness, intimacy, and the joy of chosen family.
We are introduced to Awele and Yesimi, two young women whose teenage love story is both a tender bloom and a tragedy stifled by exposure and shame. However, they somehow find their way back to each other, in contrast to Bessem and Fatima, in the novel These Letters End in Tears by Musih Tedji Xaviere. Also, we see the tenderness and love between Hassan and Tega, whose relationship—like many in the novel—is not neatly resolved, but rather lived through with grace, hurt, and hope.
“And you know what? In life, you have to be careful who you allow to trust you; you have to know where to stop before life stops you.”
In a country (Nigeria) where queerness is often criminalized, where survival depends on performance, these characters navigate the delicate balance between concealment and revelation. As one character says:
“Before we met each other, we all had lies we needed to tell ourselves and others if we were going to live well. Maro says there’s already a term for that type of lie: necessary fictions.”
These necessary fictions are clearly seen in the generational divide presented in the book—the divide between those who had to love in silence and those who now dare to name their identities. Isoken and Alhaji embody these conflicts. Their internalized shame, their buried relationship, and their confrontation with her children's openness form one of the most powerful meditations in the novel on shame and generational trauma.
“...They think they are braver; they are just louder.”
Even the loudness is sacred. The blog entries, the Truth Circle, the whispered confessions, they are all acts of faith and a liturgy of survival. I loved how they speak in dialect, resist full exposition, and the radical tenderness they share among themselves despite the pain, the abusive parents, the societal rejections, and the buried grief.
“If you have friends, you have love. If you have yourself, you have love. If you have me, you have love. Look at me, you have love. Leave the past, you have love. Hold the future because you have love.”
The final scenes, Maro’s wedding and Awele’s drafting of a new essay in her note app, felt like a benediction:
“You taught me that wounds are not the only things we can respond to. We can also respond to how much love we’ve seen.”
The essence of Necessary Fiction is that it offers a feast of language, of love, of defiance. To read this book is to sit at a table where stories are broken like bread, where silence is as nourishing as speech.
Thank you @4thEstate and Matt for the ARC❤️
“I tell people all the time, street na electric, anybody fit shock you. So when you find your people, the ones wey go ride for you till this world fold, commit to them like it’s a religion.”
Set in Nigeria, this novel, told in stories, follows the lives of cross-generational queer people and their experiences. At the heart of the novel is a community of characters navigating the space between necessary lies and liberating truths.
We meet Ziz, a serial entrepreneur with schemes both absurd and brilliant, ranging from actors-for-hire to fake travel souvenirs. Ziz embodies the hustle, satire, and heartbreak of a world that demands constant reinvention. His closest friends include Maro, a grieving son mourning his father's death and complex legacy; Akin, a quiet musician whose emotional range is often played out through sound rather than speech. Characters like May, Akin, Ayinke, Ajimobi, Aunty G, the twins, Awele, and Yesimi carry with them not just stories but spiritual weight.
"...Silence is a blessing, silence is safe, silence is calming, silence is full of love, silence is goodness resting, silence is music. Silence is for me, silence has great potential, silence is vast and humbling. Silence is complete, silence is true, silence is prayer."
Eloghosa invites us to a communion with her characters. In silence, they ask us to sit with their pain, their joys, and their rebellion until their truth becomes inseparable from our own. Yet with all the heaviness presented, the novel is suffused with tenderness, intimacy, and the joy of chosen family.
We are introduced to Awele and Yesimi, two young women whose teenage love story is both a tender bloom and a tragedy stifled by exposure and shame. However, they somehow find their way back to each other, in contrast to Bessem and Fatima, in the novel These Letters End in Tears by Musih Tedji Xaviere. Also, we see the tenderness and love between Hassan and Tega, whose relationship—like many in the novel—is not neatly resolved, but rather lived through with grace, hurt, and hope.
“And you know what? In life, you have to be careful who you allow to trust you; you have to know where to stop before life stops you.”
In a country (Nigeria) where queerness is often criminalized, where survival depends on performance, these characters navigate the delicate balance between concealment and revelation. As one character says:
“Before we met each other, we all had lies we needed to tell ourselves and others if we were going to live well. Maro says there’s already a term for that type of lie: necessary fictions.”
These necessary fictions are clearly seen in the generational divide presented in the book—the divide between those who had to love in silence and those who now dare to name their identities. Isoken and Alhaji embody these conflicts. Their internalized shame, their buried relationship, and their confrontation with her children's openness form one of the most powerful meditations in the novel on shame and generational trauma.
“...They think they are braver; they are just louder.”
Even the loudness is sacred. The blog entries, the Truth Circle, the whispered confessions, they are all acts of faith and a liturgy of survival. I loved how they speak in dialect, resist full exposition, and the radical tenderness they share among themselves despite the pain, the abusive parents, the societal rejections, and the buried grief.
“If you have friends, you have love. If you have yourself, you have love. If you have me, you have love. Look at me, you have love. Leave the past, you have love. Hold the future because you have love.”
The final scenes, Maro’s wedding and Awele’s drafting of a new essay in her note app, felt like a benediction:
“You taught me that wounds are not the only things we can respond to. We can also respond to how much love we’ve seen.”
The essence of Necessary Fiction is that it offers a feast of language, of love, of defiance. To read this book is to sit at a table where stories are broken like bread, where silence is as nourishing as speech.
Thank you @4thEstate and Matt for the ARC❤️
October 18, 2025
The prose in this is so poetic, tender and fragile which is such a great way to write a book about a group of Nigerian queer friends who have become each other's found family.
This was a slow listen, not because it was boring or a slog but because it was the kind of book you want to take slowly so you can really feeling the story and hold space for the importance of the lessons within the pages of the book.
The characters are well-rounded, have a great depth to them and you can't help but feel their emotions as they feel them. They felt so very real.
Far from the perfect book - sometimes the jumping around got a tad annoying and hard to follow- it is worth a read.
This was a slow listen, not because it was boring or a slog but because it was the kind of book you want to take slowly so you can really feeling the story and hold space for the importance of the lessons within the pages of the book.
The characters are well-rounded, have a great depth to them and you can't help but feel their emotions as they feel them. They felt so very real.
Far from the perfect book - sometimes the jumping around got a tad annoying and hard to follow- it is worth a read.
July 31, 2025
Necessary Fiction by Eloghosa Osunde is a vibrant, layered portrait of queer life in contemporary Nigeria, told through a chorus of voices full of longing, defiance, and raw emotion. Set in the heart of Lagos, the novel follows more than two dozen characters as they try to carve out space for love, identity, and creative expression, often in conflict with their families or society. Osunde’s writing is bold and lyrical, digging into how chosen families form, how people hold onto dreams, and how the stories we tell ourselves can protect or trap us. It’s messy, intimate, and full of life, a powerful look at what it means to live honestly in a world that doesn’t always want you to.
October 19, 2025
Necessary Fiction by Eloghosa Osunde (book Cover is in image) is one of my favorite reads for this year. This character driven novel immediately immerses the reader and holds on to you until the end. Focusing on living in Nigeria where being LGBTQIAP+ is a crime, covering themes of love, discrimination and found family, these characters make us live the love, fear and hope they all experince. I highly recommend this for those who love books that make you feel all the feelings.
Thank you @riverheadbooks, and @netgalley for the opportunity to read this book. All opinions are my own.
Pub Date:
Rating: 5 stars
#RiverheadBooks
#NecessaryFictions
#EloghosaOsunde
#Fiction
#AfricanFiction
#yarisbooknook
#netgalley
Thank you @riverheadbooks, and @netgalley for the opportunity to read this book. All opinions are my own.
Pub Date:
Rating: 5 stars
#RiverheadBooks
#NecessaryFictions
#EloghosaOsunde
#Fiction
#AfricanFiction
#yarisbooknook
#netgalley
August 13, 2025
A book about queer friends in Nigeria navigating with their own grief, messiness, love, gender, etc. and I really enjoyed the writing! Despite their messiness, I felt they were really humanized in a way where I really felt and cared for them. There were heart wrenching moments amongst their individual stories but think it was perfectly balanced by a lot of sweetness and tenderness between their friendship and across generations!
November 10, 2025
This collection follows a tight-knit group of queer friends in Nigeria, built around the idea of chosen family. Each chapter functions as a short story, and together they’re meant to form a bigger narrative about how, for many people, community is something you create for yourself when blood ties fail you. That theme is powerful and necessary, and I really appreciated how clearly the book centres the safety, tenderness, and solidarity that can exist outside traditional family structures.
That said, it didn’t quite work for me as a reading experience. I usually love multi-perspective storytelling, especially when the pieces click together in a satisfying way, but here the connections often felt loose. At times the narrative drifted, and the shifts in point of view made it feel disjointed rather than layered. For example, a chapter might open in third person following a character, then suddenly switch into first person from that same character without much framing. I can see how this might have been an intentional stylistic choice, but in practice it disrupted the flow and weakened the overall coherence of the story for me.
That said, it didn’t quite work for me as a reading experience. I usually love multi-perspective storytelling, especially when the pieces click together in a satisfying way, but here the connections often felt loose. At times the narrative drifted, and the shifts in point of view made it feel disjointed rather than layered. For example, a chapter might open in third person following a character, then suddenly switch into first person from that same character without much framing. I can see how this might have been an intentional stylistic choice, but in practice it disrupted the flow and weakened the overall coherence of the story for me.
December 27, 2025
beautifully written stories of a group of friends in Nigeria. Osunde poetically dissects difficulties of family relationships, mental health, art and self expression, and most importantly our relationship with death and those already gone. emotional, deep, spiritual
July 31, 2025
Messy queer lives in the heart of Nigeria. Perfect.
June 18, 2025
Thanks to Netgalley and Riverhead Books for the ebook. An epic view of a large group of friends in present day Lagos, Nigeria. Queer life is viewed through over a dozen friends who pursue writing, music, photography and wildly inventive forms of commerce, but don’t always know how to deal with family, friends and especially relationships. But they’ve all got each other’s backs with mentorship and/or hard truths. We meet everyone in a jumble, but the following chapters slow down and walk us through all these fascinating lives.
April 29, 2025
‘If anyone deserves to live, it is us. It is us, after all this dying we have done.’
This is going to be a really important book for a lot of people. Floating between members of a queer found family in Lagos Nigeria, it asks what it takes to choose to live your truth life in a world that seems determined to erase certain realities. What does it cost to overcome the burden of parental shame? How does found family make healing possible and allow the imagination of a better future?
This book felt very fluid, it didn’t stick to a plot and was more a character study of different members of the friend group. There were lots of moments that felt very poignant and heavy, but others felt somewhat over-therapized and distant.
This reminded me a bit of Little Rot by Akwaeke Emezi but with less plot and a more hopeful outlook. I think people who grew up in or are familiar with this space will feel very held and healed by these stories.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC
This is going to be a really important book for a lot of people. Floating between members of a queer found family in Lagos Nigeria, it asks what it takes to choose to live your truth life in a world that seems determined to erase certain realities. What does it cost to overcome the burden of parental shame? How does found family make healing possible and allow the imagination of a better future?
This book felt very fluid, it didn’t stick to a plot and was more a character study of different members of the friend group. There were lots of moments that felt very poignant and heavy, but others felt somewhat over-therapized and distant.
This reminded me a bit of Little Rot by Akwaeke Emezi but with less plot and a more hopeful outlook. I think people who grew up in or are familiar with this space will feel very held and healed by these stories.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC
September 1, 2025
3.75⭐️ loved the first story and others throughout the book but after a while it started to feel like the same message every story which made the whole book feel longer than necessary.
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July 7, 2025Thank you Matt, and 4th Estate books for the advanced copy.
Eloghosa Osunde’s Necessary Fiction is a fiercely tender, thought-provoking, and soul-stirring exploration of love, identity, and the complicated ties that bind and break us. In a web of interconnected stories, Osunde introduces us to characters who are bold in their pursuit of self-love and chosen love—even when it comes at a cost.
These are people who risk it all: parents, spouses, families, friendships—all for the audacity to choose love on their own terms.
What makes a family?
Who gets to define it?
This book doesn’t offer easy answers. Instead, it invites readers to sit with the discomfort, beauty, and tension of becoming, belonging, and breaking free.
One of the book’s greatest strengths is how it holds multiple characters and voices with grace. Despite its wide cast, each story feels intimate and personal. Osunde makes space for everyone, and each character's arc is distinct, emotionally layered, and deeply human.
This is the kind of book that makes you feel everything: love, rage, grief, joy, desire, and hope. I found myself pausing often, reaching for a highlighter, needing to underline the wisdom packed into Osunde’s thought-provoking sentences. Her craft is brilliant—sharp yet tender, poetic yet grounded. This is my second book by her, and once again, she did not disappoint.
A standout element of the book is its use of language. The presence of Nigerian Pidgin is not just stylistic—it roots the characters in their world and preserves the cultural depth of their experiences. The language holds weight, and delivers meaning that simply wouldn't hit the same in standard English.
Necessary Fiction is exactly what its title promises: fiction that feels urgent, essential, and real. Osunde doesn’t just tell stories—she builds worlds, honors voices, and writes with both fire and empathy. A must-read.
Eloghosa Osunde’s Necessary Fiction is a fiercely tender, thought-provoking, and soul-stirring exploration of love, identity, and the complicated ties that bind and break us. In a web of interconnected stories, Osunde introduces us to characters who are bold in their pursuit of self-love and chosen love—even when it comes at a cost.
These are people who risk it all: parents, spouses, families, friendships—all for the audacity to choose love on their own terms.
What makes a family?
Who gets to define it?
This book doesn’t offer easy answers. Instead, it invites readers to sit with the discomfort, beauty, and tension of becoming, belonging, and breaking free.
One of the book’s greatest strengths is how it holds multiple characters and voices with grace. Despite its wide cast, each story feels intimate and personal. Osunde makes space for everyone, and each character's arc is distinct, emotionally layered, and deeply human.
This is the kind of book that makes you feel everything: love, rage, grief, joy, desire, and hope. I found myself pausing often, reaching for a highlighter, needing to underline the wisdom packed into Osunde’s thought-provoking sentences. Her craft is brilliant—sharp yet tender, poetic yet grounded. This is my second book by her, and once again, she did not disappoint.
A standout element of the book is its use of language. The presence of Nigerian Pidgin is not just stylistic—it roots the characters in their world and preserves the cultural depth of their experiences. The language holds weight, and delivers meaning that simply wouldn't hit the same in standard English.
Necessary Fiction is exactly what its title promises: fiction that feels urgent, essential, and real. Osunde doesn’t just tell stories—she builds worlds, honors voices, and writes with both fire and empathy. A must-read.
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