Nnedi > Recent Status Updates

“Patches of paint had peeled off exposing the concrete beneath. The eyes once painted black had turned white in places …”

I find it interesting that all five characters perceived the hippo somewhat similarly - observing its eyes and the colour it was painted

Is in inherently human to hate that which is different to us? It’s always a religious, ethnical or racial conflict. Why?

I am so amazed by the number of similarities between public administration in Nigeria and India - demolishing of makeshift homes, chasing public officials for running water, street fold sold around public government offices

The exploration of grief is one redeeming aspect of this book - it’s also realistic with Nigerian culture/parenting - so much goes unsaid, and I can’t imagine the weight of losing both wife and son so close together for Baby’s father

Samson’s story line is a bit perplexing because how have we gone from him being someone her father suspects she likes to him being selected to accompany her on a trip to Switzerland?

first pace change in this book - discovering Charlie boy is actually dead. I found the reveal backstory slightly off putting with phrases like “coconut head” and “conked” - like isn’t this a painful memory for Baby?
I also don’t get Baby’s use of British English and grammar one minute and switching to incomplete/implausible Nigerian vernacular in the next.

resisting abandoning so far. I’m finding a lot of the dialogue in this book implausible [from a Nigerian context], and the switching of tenses present tense to past participle a bit annoying.

This was such a beautiful read. “Her belief in him was simple, her love unquestioning. And this, he could see, after all these years was his truest blessing. It was why, he had eventually come to realise, he loved Miebi. For Miebi felt, in addition to many things, familiar, instilling in him the same feeling he had felt with his mother - the relief of finally having arrived at a safe location.

This was a beautiful book.