One Leg on Earth

by 'Pemi Aguda

'AN ASTONISHING TALENT' Lauren Groff, author of The Vaster Wilds

'STUNNING' Abi Dare, author of The Girl with the Louding Voice

'GORGEOUS' Rochelle Dowden-Lord, author of Lush

All across the city, pregnant women are walking into water ...

Twenty-three-year-old Yosoye arrives in Lagos ready to start her life. Working for a slick architectural firm, she finds a city of adventure and opportunity. Her new world is one of fancy gallery openings, glamorous friends, and all the shiny potential of the future, encapsulated in projects like Omi City, the brand-new housing development her company is building.

But Yosoye's idyllic vision of Lagos soon begins to seem naïve, and its darker, stranger layers trouble her. Something is not right about Omi City, but no-one will give her satisfactory answers. And then, after a chance encounter in her first weeks in Lagos, Yosoye realizes that she is pregnant...

A vibrant and atmospheric evocation of modern Lagos, the promises of progress and the mysterious lure of the abyss, One Leg on Earth is a haunting and arresting story from an unmissable new voice in literature.

Genres: Fiction, Africa, Horror, Literary Fiction, Nigeria, Speculative Fiction, Audiobook

198 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 7, 2026

About the author

Pemi Aguda is a Nigerian writer known for her short stories and debut collection Ghostroots (2024). Her work often explores complex themes surrounding motherhood, identity, and the supernatural. Ghostroots, which includes previously published stories such as "Breastmilk" and "The Hollow", was a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award for Fiction and received critical acclaim for its unifying themes and narrative cohesion.

Aguda's stories have been widely recognized, earning multiple accolades, including an O'Henry Award in 2022 for "Breastmilk" and again in 2023 for "The Hollow". Additionally, "Breastmilk" was shortlisted for the 2024 Caine Prize for African Writing. Her forthcoming novel, The Suicide Mothers, which won the 2020 Deborah Rogers Foundation Award, is slated for release in 2025.

Reviews

[GCR | Book Realm]

I received this audiobook through NetGalley and Dreamscape Media.

One Leg on Earth was a harder one for me to connect with. Maybe part of that was experiencing it through audio only, but by the end I still felt unsure about the why behind some of the women’s choices, and that made it harder for me to fully settle into the story.

This is definitely a slower-paced, more literary novel, and that pacing fits the kind of story it is trying to tell. While it wasn’t really my vibe, I could still see how thought-provoking it was. The loneliness around motherhood stood out the most for me and gave the story its strongest emotional thread.

The narration itself was good, but with Yosoye being 23, the voice sounded too mature for me to fully believe I was following someone in her twenties. Because of that, it was harder for the perspective to land as naturally as I wanted it to.

Overall, while this wasn’t a book I fully connected with, I would recommend it to readers and listeners who enjoy slower, more literary, thought-provoking stories that focus on motherhood, loneliness, atmosphere, and character study more than straightforward plot.

[BookOfCinz · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish they let the author cooked… because this was half baked

We meet 23 year old Yosoye in One Leg On Earth she has just recently moved to Lagos and is ready to make all her dreams come true, despite all the warnings from family and friends. She lives alone and starts her internship at an architectural firm that is building a new housing development. While Yosoye has a lot going for her after a one night stand she is pregnant. The thing is, pregnant women in Lagos keep dying, and going back to the ocean. What will become of Yosoye?

There is no denying that Aguda is brilliant writer and will be force, however this debut novel is not it. Having read Ghostroots I was very excited to pick up her debut novel but I was underwhelmed I wish she had a stronger editor who insisted on fleshing out the story. The idea was there but the execution was shoddy. I wish we had an additional 100 pages so the story could be further fleshed out. I finished reading it and was deeply underwhelmed.

However, this will not deter me, I will read everything Aguda writes.

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Totally stunning. What a novel!

[Marcus (Lit_Laugh_Luv)]

This is so important to me (I loved Ghostroots: Stories)

[Renee Godding · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5 stars, rounded up.

"This state of pregnancy is not so different from what we’re doing here. We’re gestating a city, Yosoye. Soon we will birth greatness. Isn’t it all creation? Isn’t it all holy work?"

There’s an interesting microtrend of “women walking into bodies of water” going on among spring 2026 releases. In March, we had Westward Women by Alice Martin, in which women were drawn towards the pacific ocean, to vanish without a trace. In April, we had The Underlake by Erin L. McCoy, in which two women is drawn to a rumoured utopian city beneath the surface of a lake. And now in May, we’re presented with One Leg on Earth, in which a wave of water-based suicides affects only the pregnant women of Lagos, Nigeria.

The Story:
The lonely daughter of a distant mother, Yosoye arrives in Lagos ready to change her life. Weeks after she begins an internship at a fancy architectural firm, she discovers she is pregnant. Yosoye is joyful—a new life brings the hope of connection and companionship.
But an inexplicable force is haunting the pregnant women of Lagos. As construction speeds ahead on the firm’s glossy new development on land reclaimed from the ocean, stories of the uncanny deaths in the city’s open waters reach a fever pitch. Yosoye finds herself stalked by a presence she can neither ignore nor appease—without risking her unborn baby and her precarious hopes for the future.

What I loved:
Based on ‘Pemi Aguda’s previous short-story-collection, I had high hopes for her debut novel. I can gladly say that she didn’t disappoint. Through her sensory and almost ethereal prose, she brings across an emotional, slightly disorienting, but ultimately memorable story of motherhood, agency and belonging (in multiple senses of the word).
Metaphors of water, fluidity and liminality run all throughout the story, and I was surprise to find how multilayered each managed to be in such a limited amount of pages. By the end, I felt like I’d gotten a lot more than 240 pages-worth of exploration out of these themes, and yet the novel didn’t feel dense or heavy-handed for a second.
Without spoiling any specifics, I think I particularly enjoyed the parallels Aguda draws between the creation of a city – a new way of living – and the creation of human life. There is a certain in-between-state involved in either, but only one has a name: pregnancy.
Overall, I’ve read an incredible streak of fabulous debuts this year, and this novel can join that hall of fame immediately.
It’s worth noting that this is a book that’s light on plot, and heavy on character and metaphor, and I’m aware that some readers will bounce off that. That being said, if you, like me, enjoy this kind of thing, then you cannot let One Leg on Earth float by you.

Notes on the Audio:
Although I usually love the audio-format just about equally to the written word, I would’ve preferred to read this book with my eyes, had I had the choice. Although the narrator does a fantastic job of performing the story, I couldn’t shake the feeling that her voice and inflection sounded far too mature for the 23-year old protagonist. Additionally, the narrator has a fairly heavy Nigerian accent, which adds to the authenticity and the cultural feeling of the book, but it also demands more from my listening-comprehension as a non-native English speaker.
This is obviously specific to me and will impact native speakers less, but it’s worth a mention, given I rarely have this issue with English audio.


Many thanks to RB Media for providing me with an audio-ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Please not that quotes are taken from the ARC and may not match the final publication exactly.

[Mina · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is written beautifully, except the part where we never get the answer of WHY the pregnant women were being compelled to drown themselves. There are creepy odd points in the book that make you think you’re about to figure it out and then NOPE, nothing. Magical realism, fine, but even then there is usually a satisfying conclusion.

The themes explored in this book are the struggles of pregnancy, motherhood, being women in society, the corruption behind perceived societal progress, but NONE of these answer the biggest part of this book, the SUICIDES! What is calling these women to the water? There is speculation of evil baby spirits, angry unseen forces of Omi City being built on haunted land, or a weird idea from Yosoye’s ‘friend’ Precious, that it is a feminist movement. However, at the end, nothing is ever actually revealed. It ends with the cycle of corruption just ever continuing. How wonderful!

If you love existentialism and ghost stories and being left wondering “WHY?”, then you will love this book.

[Oserò · Rating 5 out of 5]

Listen up.
When this novel comes out, take your money and buy two copies—one for yourself and one for a friend.

This was a mind-blowing reading experience. I’m never going to shut up about this book when it comes out. One Leg on Earth is so brilliant. There are so many words I discovered while reading this book that I want to tattoo them on my body.

Thank you, Pemi Aguda, for doing what you do. And of course, thank you to NetGalley for giving me early access to this book.

[Bookaholic__Reviews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rtc

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel begins with a pregnant woman jumping off a bridge in Lagos to her death, seemingly in a fit of ecstasy. We soon learn that this has become an epidemic of sorts, or a contagion. Then Yosoye moves to Lagos to fulfil her year in the National Youth Services Corps, working for a company developing a high-end residential community by the water. Yosoye becomes pregnant and starts to hear to hear the deceased pregnant women and the water calling to her.

This novel is part literary horror, part social commentary, and part cautionary tale. The idea of “progress” and development at all costs is examined. What is more important: people or money? Are women valued, and if so, where does their value lie? Are they afforded true choice in their lives? This is a propulsive, tense read that covers a lot of ground.

Thank you to NetGalley and WW Norton for allowing me to read an ARC of this title.

[Leah M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Amazon Vine for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The cover of this book is what caught my attention, with the stunning artwork on it. After the cover, I read the summary and it sounded really unique and caught my attention. I found this to be a fantastic idea, and knowing that this is Aguda’s debut novel, I was really impressed.

Yosoye moves from a small town to Lagos for an internship, and is glad for a new start to life. She’s an only child, her mother is emotionally distant, and she has been intensely lonely for her entire life. At 23, she gets placed in a position in Lagos, which is where she was hoping for. When she arrives, she decides to do things a little differently, and say yes to more activities, to be open about her desires, and to chase what she wants. She finds herself in an opportune position when she is propositioned for a one-night stand.and takes the opportunity to say yes.

But only a short time after starting her new position, she realizes that she is pregnant. It isn’t long before she starts discovering some things about Lagos that are concerning, and it effortlessly incorporates those into not only the story, but also reflecting the changes occurring within Yosoye herself. As she adjusts to her new city, she notices the capitalism and greed that work within the society, and then discovers the role played by the architectural firm she’s interning at and it changes how she feels about everything.

Against this backdrop, there is first one, then a few, then many pregnant women who are throwing themselves into the waters. Yosoye isn’t immune to it, and she hears these voices from the waters calling to her. It was fascinating how this aspect of the story was handled, with the lure of the water juxtaposed with the way Yosoye’s firm is creating new luxury housing by reclaiming sand back from the very waters that pregnant women from all over Lagos are joyfully surrendering themselves to. The water is more than a body of water—it is a sentient character within the story as well, adding another dimension of complexity and depth (no pun intended, but I’m delighted to have made one even accidentally).

Throughout the book, heavy themes come through and are portrayed sensitively. The legacy of colonialism, bodily autonomy, body horror, suicide, and such a significant gap in socioeconomic status that it feels like a pendulum swinging between the people who can afford to live in the new housing unit being built, and children begging in the streets. Each of these was threaded through the story effortlessly, and I enjoyed how the water-based folklore was also intertwined in the story.

Aguda’s writing is beautiful; lyrical and poetic and a pleasure to read. I was able to visualize the scenes, and at times, I read the audiobook version. The narrator, Délé Ogundiran, had a wonderfully lyrical accent that made it even easier to immerse myself in the story, even if her voice sounded more mature than I’d expect a woman of 23 to sound.

Overall, this book was outstanding as a debut, and I was really impressed by a lot of things about it. The writing made this an enjoyable read, and I especially enjoyed how the overall scenes playing out within Lagos are reflected in Yosoye’s own mind and body. Originally excited to move to Lagos and begin making friends to remedy the overwhelming sense of loneliness that she always carried, she ultimately realizes that Lagos isn’t going to change her sense of isolation and feeling of being hollowed out, and that hollow feeling isn’t going to be filled by the capitalist focus and drive for more, more, more. I was blown away by how the story unfolded, but at times I found it difficult to connect with Yosoye. The way Aguda used folklore to balance out the corporate greed that is threaded throughout the town was fascinating to read, while she also addressed the impending threat of climate change and rising sea levels.

Bottom line: A debut novel that vacillates between coming-of-age, folk horror, body horror, and literary fiction not to miss, featuring a compelling plot line and intriguing characters set against the backdrop of vibrant Lagos.

[TheBookOfMicah_ · Rating 3 out of 5]

ARC REVIEW - received physical copy at BookCon

The prologue (“Fruit”) immediately drew me in and set an intriguing tone for the story. However, I found that the story slowed considerably in the early chapters and didn’t fully pick up again until Yosoye discovered she was pregnant.
One aspect I appreciated was how her friend and coworker grounded the situation in reality, pointing out the challenges she faced, including relocating to a new city, navigating what is essentially a rare internship opportunity, financial instability, and uncertainty about the father of her child.
That said, I struggled with how pregnant women were treated throughout the book. There were moments that felt uncomfortable, such as her coworkers pressuring her to drink despite knowing she was pregnant, and the extreme behavior of Blessing’s husband confining her out of fear for her and their child.

I was also struck by the social dynamics, particularly how the company employees treated poorer individuals. Even when some characters acknowledged their own difficult circumstances, they still seemed eager to support a system that perpetuated those inequalities, which was frustrating to read.

Yosoye’s relationship with her mother was another difficult element. The lack of support was disheartening, and certain backstory details, like how she came to have Mandy, left me feeling annoyed. Similarly, when she sought help through a support group and shared her experiences, the dismissive responses she received added to the sense that she was consistently let down by those around her.

Some of the side characters were also challenging to connect with, particularly the friend whose fixation on pregnant women dying by suicide felt extreme. Altogether, the story often gave the impression that Yosoye lacked a meaningful support system, which made her journey feel especially isolating.

Overall, while the book presents some intriguing ideas, I found myself wishing for stronger character support and more nuanced handling of certain themes.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Copy provided by publisher]

READ IF YOU LIKE...
• Cities vs. nature
• Fiction that explores pregnancy
• Beautifully incorporated symbolism

I THOUGHT IT WAS...
A really arresting novel that effortlessly explores many of the complexities of seemingly composed places and communities, exposing the ugliness beneath. Yosoye arrives in the big city of Lagos in her early 20s to work at a prestigious architecture firm helming an ambitious project: building a brand new development from scratch on new reclaimed ground. Simultaneously, something ominous is happening - pregnant women in the city are finding their way to water and drowning. What starts as idle gossip becomes Yosoye's obsession as she finds herself pregnant after a one-night stand.

I can see now why Aguda's story collection received such praise and a finalist spot for the National Book Award. Her writing is stunning, and you walk away with her story as well as all that swirls underneath the story (a hallmark of the best short story writers, in my opinion).

In this novel, we're told the story of poor Yosoye, a girl that repeatedly describes herself as hollow, yearning for a person or a community to fill her up and make her "real." But we're also entering a story already in progress, a conflict as old as time between human greed masked as ingenuity and the Earth. As a city on the coast, the urbanity of Lagos is constantly at war with water. And it seems like we've won, to the point where we can literally reclaim land from the sea. But what happens if the sea fights back by reclaiming not just people, but also future generations?

Exploring urbanization, wealth inequality, displacement, depression, pregnancy, motherhood, and women's continued societal burden, Aguda's written a compact novel bursting with big things to say.

[Sydney · Rating 4 out of 5]

the language in this novel is just so yummy. so many phrases just blew my mind. reading this book feels like a haunting in the best way possible, there’s an excitement in the uneasiness. the themes of ecological decline and the corruptive side of progress were slightly less developed for me, but still made for a chilling read. really made me want to read the author’s short story collection!

[friday reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25/5 ⭐️ - This book was very abstract, the prose was beautiful most of the time and I was very intrigued by the premise but overall not sure I completely understood it.

(Thank you W.W. Norton for the ARC, all thoughts are my own)

I felt this would have really shined as a short story, it felt a bit drawn out with uneven pacing that made me feel like this concept could’ve benefitted with some trimming down.

The biggest aspect I enjoyed was being immersed in Lagos environmentally and culturally. I valued the family dynamics and inclusion of current events going on in Lagos.

In the end I’m slightly confused and not sure what to take from this novel. The impact intended feels ineffective and not much occurred to help me find clarity. I would be open to reading more from this author though!

[The Blog Without a Face · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Architect Says Blank Slate, The Water Disagrees
BWAF SINISTER SELECTION
BWAF Score: 7/10

TL;DR: A pregnant woman dances off a Lagos bridge in the first six pages, and ‘Pemi Aguda spends the rest of this short, sharp debut novel making you understand why. One Leg on Earth is the rare horror book that opens a question instead of closing one. A Lagos novel, a daughter novel, a haunting.

A pregnant woman dances off the Third Mainland Bridge in the first six pages. Her name is Miriam Aiki. She has prayed thirteen years for the child she is carrying, the kind of prayer that takes the skin off knees. Now, in stalled Lagos traffic on the way to a cousin’s wedding, she is laughing at a joke nobody else can hear. She kicks off her fuchsia slingbacks. One heel strikes the bonnet of her husband’s car. She skips between idling vehicles, screeching and twirling, and goes belly-first into the lagoon, “like a child jumping into the arms of a beloved parent.” ‘Pemi Aguda writes this scene the way you would write a wedding: with attention, with affection, and with one short clean sentence at the end of it. Five pages in, the book has already shown its hand.

Here is the rest of the hand. A young woman named Yosoye Bakare, twenty-three years old, mass communications degree, only daughter of a withholding mother in Ibadan, arrives in Lagos for her NYSC year. She acquires, in short order, a one-night-stand pregnancy and a make-the-coffee job at the architecture firm developing Omi City, a luxury reclaimed-land project the firm has dredged out of the Atlantic. Pregnant women across Lagos, meanwhile, are walking into water. The architect-in-chief calls Omi City a pure blank slate, which is bullshit; something was scraped off to make it, and the women in the water and the people in the ground are working the same side of an old grievance. None of this is hidden by the author. She wants you to do the math out loud.

What earns the conceit, sentence by sentence, is texture. Aguda is the kind of writer who makes a reviewer retype passages and stare at them sideways. A purple stuffed elephant whose head, at some shift in air, falls forward drunkenly so that it watches its own buttonless navel. A keke driver with a cigarette held in his lips, never lit, while he tells a story so heavy he forgets to. Spices stolen from a mother’s pantry that, on the bus from Ibadan, collide and borrow each other’s flavors, so that the curry now carries the sneeze-inducing sharpness of Cameroon pepper and the thyme container is haunted by iru. The horror comes the way the spices do. There is no thing under the bed. There is the smell of brine in an office bathroom where no brine should be. There is the slosh inside a head. There is, once, a procession of three women slathered shoulder to thigh in wet mud, walking past the gates of the new city while a security guard panics; we are told later, almost in passing, that this is an old gesture, that Asaro warriors caked themselves in mud to lie down on riverbanks and rose in the morning looking like ghosts, that women in the old country wore mud to refuse a marriage and demand a canoe back. Aguda gives the image and the footnote and walks away.

The book is also, in long stretches, very funny, and the joke is not on Yosoye but adjacent to her. She has read internet articles about how to make friends in a new city. She works hard at maintaining eye contact at the recommended intervals. She announces her pregnancy to a woman she has known for fifteen minutes because an article promised that disclosing personal information forms intimate connections. She is a girl trying to become a person from instructions. Aguda renders this without contempt, which is harder than it looks.

The mother in Ibadan is a different kind of accomplishment. Olabisi sews boubou after boubou in the light of three candles and a rechargeable lantern, looking up only when she is startled to remember she is not alone. Her apologies, when she gives them, arrive like neatly typed memos, which is the worst thing apologies can do. She is one of the truest portraits of a particular kind of withholding parent, and the novel quietly bets its emotional ending on her.

Some midbook stretches where Yosoye scrolls through fictional comment threads read like a writer typing out her research in front of you. Beloved, the bald artist with a crushed cheekbone and a thesis that there is art in death, gets set up with real interior and then in her final scene functions as an argument; you can hear the gear shift. The architect villain talks the way architect villains in novels talk. The book’s title concept, “one leg on earth, one leg in heaven,” is delivered out loud in a single conversation by, of all people, the architect, which is a thing fiction sometimes does and shouldn’t. These are small fines for largeness of ambition. They do not undo what the book has done.

What it has done is what horror is supposed to do, which is open something rather than seal it shut. The mythology Aguda is reaching for, water spirits, drowned mothers, the displaced of an old waterfront pulling at the ankles of the new development, is doing the work that a more explanatory book would have ruined. Yosoye is acted on by something that is at once inside her and outside her, at once her own loneliness and a register of an older grief, and the question the book leaves you with is whether those two things are even separable, in a city built by erasing the people who used to live there.

Aguda trained as an architect in Lagos before she did her MFA at the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at Michigan. Her debut collection Ghostroots was a finalist for the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner, the LA Times Book Prize, and the World Fantasy Award; it announced her as a stylist with a finished sensibility, which is a rare thing in a debut. The acknowledgments to this novel name a 2018 research grant that took her home to interview elders from the Otodo Gbame community whose waterfront homes had been demolished by the Lagos state government, and a 2021 fellowship that put her under the mentorship of Edwidge Danticat. The displaced waterfront in this novel has a different name on the page, but a reader who has read the news from Lagos in the last decade knows the name it answers to. Aguda also notes, at the end, that she lost her father in April 2025; the book is dedicated to outsiders. The closing line of her acknowledgments insists, “There is no darkness in my fullness.” The novel has spent most of its pages disagreeing with that sentence. The acknowledgments page is where she replies to it.

One Leg on Earth is short, just under two hundred pages, and it is the right length for what it does. It is a horror novel in the lineage Victor LaValle named in his blurb, which is the right lineage. It is also a Lagos novel, a daughter novel, and an architect’s novel about the specific trick of designing something so beautiful that you forget what was scraped off the seabed to make it. It is the kind of book that makes you walk past a construction site afterward and want to know what used to be standing there, and who. That is the work good horror is supposed to do.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve been thinking more about this debut since I read it, and while it didn’t initially come together for me, putting together Aguda’s landscape post-read reveals just how much this book is doing in such a small space.

“When she saw a lone pedestrian, the clock in her stomach chimed. That’s who she was looking for. Herself. No, not her exactly, but her kind. The kind of woman poised for flight.”

Twentysomething Yosoye arrives in Lagos for her year of service corps work and starts at an architectural firm that’s designing a new city on land reclaimed from the ocean. During her stay, she becomes pregnant, amid a swath of pregnant women committing suicide by entering the ocean. Inevitably, she wonders, what is going on and will she be next?

“She was pregnant, and pregnant women were to be watched, suspected. Would she be next? Would she blight their pristine coastline, their dazzling plans, with her bloated body?”

It becomes clear to Yosoye, early on in her time at the firm, that their project on reclaimed land won’t bring the progress it promises. That it will disenfranchise and displace and price out many. Colonization is the social critique here, and I suppose that it connects to the women entering the sea. Pregnancy connotes a colonized body, in a way. A body under control, at least by another life, and suspiciously under further control when multiple women are seen taking their own lives. This can’t be driven by individual choice, surely?

“She was sad because she knew - intellectually, even technically - that she must be loved by her mother. Alas, the cold fact of it was not enough.”

Yosoye is isolated and not close to her mother. Isolation is a tool used to intensify the oppression of less fortunate communities, and also maybe aids in a colonization of the mind. Makes you question less, fall in line more. Yosoye, having come to Lagos in hopes of a rebirth, instead ends up getting ready to give birth and cannot fall in line when she feels the spirits of the pregnant women, determined to uncover the mystery of their mysteries, if only to forsee her own fate.

Why are these women called to the ocean? Why does it feel like there’s something off about the architectural firm’s city plans? The psychological mystery and Aguda’s atmospheric writing elevate this novel cinematically.

“Why did she think she deserved a different ending? Would she wait six, seven more months only to go into labor, then discover that her baby was not in fact shaping her into a real person, but just a baby with painful gums that would shred her nipples, leaving her still hollow, a milk-bleeding hole?”

There is the commentary of motherhood as sacrifice and a woman’s given duty. Nothing terribly new here, and I don’t know how to feel about the supposed spiritual awakening of motherhood or the spiritual pull of pregnant women to their deaths in the sea. Something didn’t sit right about dead mothers-to-be and the social critique of colonization being so wrapped up, though maybe there is a pertinent point to that that I’m not getting because the connections just missed the mark for me. It’s not exactly Dead Mother Trope, but it’s nudging against it too closely for my taste.

“A mother is what is real.”

Growing a life is a pretty unhinged thing to do. It can put you between the real and the spiritual, whether you want that or not. Yosoye taking on motherhood in the absence of her own mother creates that perfect storm of isolation that enables her to connect with spirits of the other women and unravel the mystery of their disappearances. There is something magical about mothers?? Or their relation as colonized bodies to the colonized sea. In the same way having a biological mother isn’t enough for Yosoye, neither is building a city enough for people who can’t afford to live in it.

Aguda’s prose is solid and carries the novel, imo. The rest of it just didn’t hit, for me.

[Sobi’s Bookshelf · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. Reading it during the rainy season made me suspicious of every raindrop and water source, it couldn’t have been a more perfect setting.

Set in a divided Lagos where aspiration and illusion blur, One Leg on Earth follows Yosoye as she navigates class, belonging, and a city that seems to demand something in return.

One Leg on Earth does a wonderful job of peeling back the layers of an aristocratic society. Its narrative echoes the age-old adage: a house built on sand does not stand when the rain falls and the streams rise.

I was first introduced to Pemi Aguda’s work through Ghostroots and immediately fell in love with her writing; she has a unique style, cadence, and a gift for metaphor. One Leg on Earth is no different. Aguda thrusts you into the raging waters of Lagos from the very first page, much like the pregnant women you will come to wonder about. Each character reads like a narrator intent on ushering you through their own version of Lagos - fragmented, intimate, and deeply revealing.

Yosoye is such an interesting character. She almost acts as a tour guide, walking us through the stark divide between the elite and the working class. Every day, she crosses a literal bridge between two worlds: the lived reality of most Lagosians and the gleaming shores of Omi City - a promised heaven that feels just within reach.

In her desperate search for belonging and something to anchor her, she finds herself wrestling with both the seductions of Lagos and its quieter horrors. Newly pregnant in a city where pregnant women are throwing themselves into the waters, we keep a watchful eye on her as she grapples with a question that lingers long after the final page: Who owns a city, and who must surrender to its past?

Atmospheric and unsettling, this is a story that blurs reality and myth while remaining deeply rooted in place. Perfect for readers drawn to character-driven narratives that interrogate class, identity, and the cost of belonging.

I think this will really resonate with readers who enjoy character-driven stories that explore class, identity, and the cost of belonging, with just a touch of the surreal.

Releasing May 5, 2026, this is one that lingers. It is an absolute must-have on your TBR shelf. I’m incredibly grateful to the team at W. W. Norton & Company for the opportunity to experience this book ahead of its release, and I already know I’ll be coming back to it both for a deeper review and to unpack it properly with my book club once it’s out. (I can already hear them arguing about Yosoye and her mom, Olabisi)

[Paula W · Rating 3 out of 5]

Known for her award-winning collection Ghostroots, this is Aguda’s May 2026 debut novel that I have seen on all the lists lately. It helped fill the slot on my personal reading challenge for this month for “Read a book with a body part in the title”.

In the novel, 22 year old Yosoye is a recent university graduate beginning her internship at a company in Lagos that is designing and building a luxury island neighborhood from land reclaimed from the ocean. Yosoye has always felt lonely and isolated, from a nearly nonexistent relationship with her mother to friendlessness in her teens and young adulthood. When she arrives in Lagos, she is determined to change all of that even if she has to fake it until it happens. And then Yosoye discovers she is pregnant as the result of a one night stand at the same time that pregnant women are drowning themselves by jumping or walking into the ocean.

I’m not sure what I think of the book. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it. There was one take about the spirituality of motherhood vs plain old biology. There was another take about body autonomy vs being used as an incubator. There was yet more on the water as an almost sentient being that was claiming mothers-to-be in revenge for this capitalistic and unethical real estate venture in a city where countless people living in poverty could never afford such a place. Add on gentrification to colonization, a body or a piece of real estate being taken vs being freely given. It’s all in there, but it’s muddy. Nothing seems to run to the front claiming to be the main point. The prose is lovely, though I rolled my eyes a time or two when I felt it to be a bit overdone. 3 stars, and I’m really sorry about it.

Thank you to W.W. Morton & Company, ‘Pemi Aguda (author), and Edelweiss for a digital review copy of One Leg on Earth. Their generosity did not influence my review in any way.

[dani B) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have thoughts... first off, the vibes of this audio was good. The atmosphere of Lagos was so thick I could practically feel the humidity coming through my ears. But I am honestly so conflicted.

A little premise: we follow Yosoye, who is 23 and living her absolute best life at this high-end architectural firm. I was obsessed with the descriptions of the "Omi City" project. It felt very Selling Sunset meets Black Mirror. You’ve got all these fancy gallery openings and glamorous friends, but then there’s this literal dark undercurrent because pregnant women are just...walking into the water and drowning? It’s such a creepy, high-concept hook. The way the author writes Lagos is everything. It’s vibrant, shiny, and terrifying all at once; some horror elements aren't your typical jump scares-It’s that deep, "something is fundamentally wrong here" kind of dread. The title makes so much sense as the story progresses. (about 60%)

Since I did the audiobook, I have to shout out the narrator. They did an incredible job with the accents and the pacing—it really helped bridge the gap during the slower parts.

I felt sad rating this so low but LISTEN LINDA LISTEN, I wanted to love this with my whole heart, but the middle section felt a little... looped? Like we were waiting for the "collision course" the blurb promised for a bit too long. Yosoye is a great POV character, but sometimes her naivety made me want to shake her (LIKE GIRL step away from the luxury development PLEASE.) The ending also leaned really heavily into the metaphorical side. I like a weird book, don't get me wrong, but I'm left with more questions than answers. I’m all for "no thoughts, just vibes," but I needed maybe three more thoughts to stick the landing.

If you liked The City We Became or anything by Akwaeke Emezi, you’ll probably like this. It’s chilling, and definitely made me never want to go near a waterfront property again.

3.75 🎧

[Ashton Ahart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yosoye is a woman who desires change and companionship more than anything. So when her college internship sends her to Lagos to work at an architectural firm, she decides to completely reinvent her life. However, after an impulsive one-night-stand, Yosoye finds that she is not only pregnant but possibly in danger.

The pregnant women of Lagos are seemingly all committing suicide by drowning, a phenomenon that quickly gathers the nations attention as more and more bodies are discovered. In canals, rivers, off bridges and into the ocean, these suicides are all connected by water. And as Yosoye tries to discover more about the cases, she too finds herself drawn by the ocean's pull, yearning for a community where she can feel less alone.

As she continues her research, her architectural company gears up for a revolutionary new project on the outskirts of Lagos, Omi City. The project aims to create a city from scratch, one that will be molded and controlled by Nigeria’s one percent. This sparks immediate protest from advocacy groups in Lagos who claim the project will only be beneficial to the rich and will leave the poor behind.

As turmoil increases between the two groups, Yosoye continues to battle with her own identity and the prospects of motherhood – if she can make it to her due date.

One Leg on Earth, is a story about identity, loneliness, community, and the dangers of progress. The novel mixes themes of class struggle and motherhood with horror elements to create an eerie yet lyrical prose. ‘Pemi Aguda throws you into the action from the very beginning and hooks you until the very end. This story is a fast-paced reflective thriller that will leave you thinking long after you have turned the final page.

[Em · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.4 ⭐️ One Leg on Earth by Pemex Aguda is one of those novels that pulls you under while asking big questions about progress, motherhood, and the unseen forces that shape our lives.

The story follows Yosoye, a young woman who arrives in Lagos for an internship at an architectural firm, hoping the move will be a kind of rebirth. The firm is working on a luxury development built on land reclaimed from the sea, a project that promises “progress” but quickly reveals its darker edges especially for the people displaced by it or those who build it but could never afford to live there. Through Yosoye’s eyes, the novel becomes a sharp social critique of development and who it actually serves.

At the same time, something stranger is happening. Yosoye becomes pregnant during a disturbing wave of suicides among pregnant women- women who seem mysteriously called to the ocean. As she begins to feel the pull of their spirits, the novel shifts into something mythic and haunting, blending folklore with psychological tension.

Herein lies the question it asks about motherhood: what does it mean to live in the liminal space between the earthly and the spiritual while bringing new life into the world? Is motherhood meant to dissolve the self, or is there something dangerous about asking women to live only for their children? Aguda holds these tensions beautifully, and includes social critique and mythology in the story in a way that feels eerie, thoughtful, and deeply unsettling. I was here for it!

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

One Leg on Earth by 'Pemi Aguda

Title: One Leg on Earth
Author: 'Pemi Aguda
Narrated by: Délé Ogundiran
Publisher: Dreamscape Media
Length: Approximately 6 hours and 39 minutes
Source: Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @w.w.norton for the review copy of the physical book. Audiobook purchased from audible.

What country is your current book set in?

Yosoye is a lonely women, excited to be in Lagos for an architectural internship. After a one-night stand, she finds herself pregnant. As other pregnant women start being found drowned in the sea, Yosoye feel herself pressed by a fear that she will be next. Does it have anything to do with the new development she is working on that is located on reclaimed land that is meant for the rich?

My thoughts on this audiobook:
• The title comes from a saying, one leg on earth and one leg in heaven.
• This is a literary novel that is also a women’s contemporary fiction novel.
• It was a slow paced, but short novel.
• It was interesting on audiobook.
• The story explores the loneliness of motherhood.
• I thought it was an interesting look at the parallels of growing a city as a designer and growing a new life within you as a mother.
• I really enjoyed the setting in Legos.
• The story never does resolve why the women were drowning.

Overall, One Leg on Earth by 'Pemi Aguda was an interesting literary fiction novel with a riveting setting in Lagos.

This review was first posted on my blog at: https://lauragerold.blogspot.com/2026...

[Nikki Kossaris · Rating 5 out of 5]

One Leg on Earth opens with a punch to the chest and never really lets up. Before we even get to Yosoye, we meet this 38 year old woman who has wanted a child for so long, finally gets pregnant, and then in a moment that feels both unreal and terrifyingly inevitable, she steps out of her car in traffic, laughing, and walks straight into the water. It is quiet, shocking, and deeply sad. Listening to it on audio makes it hit even harder. The narration is beautiful, almost gentle, which somehow makes the tragedy feel sharper.

When we do settle into Yosoye’s story, there is this glossy surface at first. Lagos feels alive with possibility. New job, new life, art, friends, ambition. The water is always there, pulling at the edges of everything. The pregnancies. The drownings.

Yosoye’s pregnancy turns everything inward and outward at the same time. There is a pull to it. Seductive, dangerous, almost dreamlike.

While it kind of traipses around the edge of body autonomy, the patriarchy and women’s rights you can feel it.

The audiobook is stunning. The writing is lyrical without losing its bite, and the narration carries that weight of grief, fear, and inevitability all the way through.

This is a heavy read. Tragic, eerie, and intimate in a way that gets under your skin. It is about motherhood, but not in any soft or comforting sense. It is about what it costs, what it takes, and what might already be waiting for you before you even know you are part of it.

[Elena L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

[ 3.5/5 stars ]

23-year-old Yosoye moves to Lagos ready to begin her new life. Soon she finds out that she is pregnant, which would be all joy except for the recent events about pregnant women's suicides.

Beginning with an uncanny touch, the story feels like unruly tides, with no clear destination. Aguda invites us to venture into the streets of Lagos and witness its transformation. There's certain intimacy when the author exposes motherhood and pregnancy, unpeeling the impact of pregnant women on the protagonist's life. As if reverberating the political unrest, the tragedies are like a plague, questioning the cost of progress by sharply drawing parallels between women and city, motherhood and urban development.

The folklore is interwoven by very human moments and the pages are about a community grieving in a plot that can feel scattered at times yet not devoid of authentic emotions. The story becomes powerful towards the end and, while I can see its potential/relevance, I would have loved to linger more in the author's intention (perhaps 100 more pages). This is the type of story that one needs to marinate however it personally felt a bit unfinished in terms of loose ends and nuance.

ONE LEG ON EARTH is a bold debut that will benefit anyone wanting to read more about Lagos and a food to mull over. I think it was worth the read.

[ I received a complimentary copy from the publisher - WW Norton . All thoughts are my own ]

[frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to Dreamscape Media, RBmedia and Netgalley for a copy of the ALC

Délé Ogundiran does not exactly sound like the voice of our early 20’s protagonist but she really captures the sound of a woman who is battling isolation. Her calm narration makes the stalking terrors feel creeping and inspires a bit of dread.

I would personally describe this book as pretty lit fic forward and i think fans of lit fic horror would really enjoy this.

Its well written and you feel like you get to know Yosoye, and is a wonderful character study. You want to see her feel whole even as its pretty easy to see that what she wants can’t truly fulfill her desire.

Theres and interesting tension of who bares the weight of caring. Whos job is it to care about these dead women? To care about the intending greater class divide that Yosoye’s firm is developing.

Its a little slow and if you are looking for a book that focuses more one the “haunting” aspect you may be disappointed but i felt that the story we did get was worth it even if its not what I expected.

Not so much a why, or a how but a what if book

I think womb city is a very fun comp title for this, perhaps they are not the MOST similar but I’ve read two speculative fiction books were or the fmc works at an architectural firm and pregnancy is a main plot point.

[Hone · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Review copy courtesy of Dreamscape Media, ’Pemi Aguda, and NetGalley.)

4⭐

This book is absolutely a 5⭐ story with a 3⭐ ending. The bulk of it is just wow. Words. Not sure I can convey my feelings, but damn if I’m not going to try! 💪

The author’s depiction of Lagos made my chest tight. There is so much wealth disparity; so much distance between people; so much loneliness.

Loneliness and powerlessness and voicelessness.

Yosoye embodies naive hope. Not pointless optimism, but hope carved into bone because that’s all she has. Her hope leaves her aching and raw and making terrible decisions.

She believes her baby will help her be seen, be known. That her pregnancy makes her special.

Most everyone ends up rebuffing Yosoye’s attempts at human connection, and the one person who doesn’t turns out to have abhorrent motivations. Beloved made me uncomfortable from the moment we were first introduced to her. I worried for Yosoye, that Beloved would only find her interesting until she didn’t... but I never could have predicted just how maudlin her interest really was.

Wanting to have sex with someone who you find interesting only because they are pregnant and might become one of Lagos’ ’suicide sisters’ is one of the most chilling things I’ve ever read. The way hideous boredom settles onto Beloved’s features as Yosoye questions her motives disgusted me to my core.

Yosoye deserved so much better. From everyone and everything.

This is not your typical horror. In fact, I don’t know that I would call it horror at all. It’s definitely tense and psychological, but I don’t think it neatly fits into the horror genre. (Though, I’ll probably tag it that way. Don’t @ me, bro, I contain multitudes.)

I don’t know that there ever was any large abyssal horror leading these women to their deaths. I don’t buy that it was mass hysteria, either, but it feels more that the pregnant women were giving in to a deep despair caused by the state of the world than a supernatural force. I’ve often thought about how hard it would be to bring children into the hellscape that is 2026.

“Never say the water isn’t welcoming. Everyone is welcome. Water accepts all.”

The ending was… confusing. By the time Yosoye goes into the water, the narrative starts to dissolve like salt in the bath. It made me think about something that Beloved said early on:

“Sometimes you just have to show the thing. Not everyone can afford abstraction.”

But ’Pemi Aguda certainly chose abstraction with that ending. I can see the threads, but they never fully weave together into that perfect tapestry for me.

Audio-Specific 🎧: 6 Hours, 39 Minutes. Délé Ogundiran’s voice is soft and sweet, melodic with a beautiful accent. It’s the kind of voice you want to read you to sleep. Perfect for the dream-like feel of the story.

And yet, I would sometimes get too lost in her tone and lose the narrative. I found that bumping the speed to 1.25x helped. It sharpened her cadence just a little and helped my ADHD brain stick with the plot.

There was a noticeable dip in audio quality in chapters 4 and 5. I’m not sure if this is specific to the advance copy, or if it’s present in the retail version. While it was slightly distracting, it didn’t keep me from enjoying the story, and the audio had shifted back to its normal quality by chapter 6.

📌 TL;DR: A wholly discussable, emotionally raw, psychologically unsettling novel that will leave you with more questions than answers. Definitely one for the book group!

[PhoebeReads8 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley and W.W Norton & Company for this e-ARC.

The beginning of this story had me very engaged! What do you mean a lady I just met jumped off Third Mainland bridge? WHAT??!
Some of the themes explored included loneliness, motherhood and the cost of progression.
What I liked the most about this book was the writing style - It set the tone for the book. Something just felt off…dread was looming. This was immersive, I could picture almost everything that was happening which a huge win for me. Sometimes I am unable to visualize what's happening in books and I didn't have that problem here at all.

This is set in Lagos so there were so many references I could relate to things like the food, spices, soap, Yoruba, Pidgin etc. Yosoye the main character just recently moved to Lagos for NYSC and wants to start a new life. She’s dealing with loneliness and we see how far she is willing to go to deal this. This is more character driven and it’s slow - medium paced. Certain scenes had me on edge.

What I didn't love? A times, some of the descriptions and Yosoye’s thought process loses me. The ending felt anti-climatic and left me with unanswered questions.

Overall, I kept me engaged for the most part and ended up rating this 3.5/5.

[Laura Hoffman Brauman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yosoye arrives in Lagos for her internship determined to take advantage of the opportunity to reinvent herself and create the persona that she would like to be -- sort of a rebirth of her identity. Her internship is at a architectural firm that is working on an ultra-luxury development being built on land reclaimed from the sea. While she is working, she understands more about the development and what progress might really mean, especially for those who are displaced or who work on it but could never afford the cost of living there. There is a dark undercurrent to the project and what it means. Simultaneously, Yosoye becomes pregnant at a time when there is a rash of suicides by pregnant women - all seemingly called to the water in one form or another. It's another type of dark undercurrent and you see Yosoye pulled at by both her understanding of the true meaning of the "progress" of the development and by the mysterious force leading so many pregnant women to end their lives. This was an intriguing mix of social critique and mythology/folklore pulled together by a very skilled writer. Looking forward to the release of this novel in May of 2026.

[Janine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A haunting story of an African country’s capital city, Lagos, where pregnant women are walking into water and drowning. Why is this happening?

Twenty-three year old, Yosoye, has come from the country to Lagos as part of a government-supported internship for students graduating from college. She’s assigned to a “slick” architectural firm and is drawn into the glamorous world that it offers - parties, gallery openings, pompous acquaintances. The firm is engaged in creating an exciting new ultra-luxury waterfront development, Omi City. But soon Yosoye finds herself pregnant and realizes this bright new world is really dark. The drowning of pregnant women bothers Yosoye especially as no one really seems to care as the project is more important than the people. Yosoye is then faced with a personal dilemma.

This is a well written coming of age story and a story about the dark side of modernization. I liked Yosoye as she struggles to understand what is happening in her world and how motherhood will affect her. However, it wasn’t clear to me about the reasons for all the women walking into the water and drowning. In her afterward, the author mentions that the government had taken over the waterfront which had been the home of fishermen and common people to modernize it. This explained a bit. Nonetheless it’s a fascinating story.

I’d like to thank NetGalley and W.W. Morton and Co for allowing me to read this ARC.

[DH · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a free advance copy of this book from a Goodreads Giveaway and did not research this book before reading it. However, I am glad that I did read it.

This book was part coming-of-age, part social commentary, and part horror. The themes of death, birth, class, history, the material and inmaterial, injustice, love, and emptiness wove together very well.

This book also has a lot of non-English/Nigerian words and phrases woven in such a way that you do not need to know the language to understand what is going on. I am not from Nigeria, so it was neat to learn the names of many things I recognize but did not previously know the name of.

The author was very good at describing things in such a way that I could imagine the setting with all my senses, despite never having been anywhere quite like the massive city of Lagos.

I am glad I had the opportunity to give this book a read! It is not very long and goes by quickly, so I recommend giving it a shot. I would consider other books by this author.