Reviews with content warning for Rape - Black Sunday

I found some of the writing very hitting but it wasn’t consistent. Also liked the perspectives between the four siblings but felt like it was lacking bc of the little info given from Peter and Andrew. I also wanted more from Bibike and Ariyike’s POV. I even thought it’d be cool to have the grandmother’s perspective too.

Edit: couldn’t find a isbn for the ebook edition I read on Libby so this review is for the hardcover edition :/

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peachani's review against another edition

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challenging medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

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danajoy's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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just_one_more_paige's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

My 13th Aspen Words Literary Prize 2021 Longlist read and review. Despite my best efforts, I did not make it to all 15 longlist books before the shortlist was announced. However, I made it through this one, so I was only two books short. I’m honestly not upset about that – I was pretty close! And I’ll definitely be getting to those last two, so don’t worry (which, of course, I know you were). Anyways, this is one that I had not ever heard of before the longlist was announced and I don’t think I’ve really seen anyone else read or review it. That being said, I really had no idea what it was abut or what to expect going in. Sometimes, not knowing is nice though, and it’s been a while since that’s been the case for me. It was a nice mix-up!

Black Sunday follows a family living in Lagos, Nigeria, over about 20 years, from the mid-90s to the mid-2010s. It’s told in rotating part by each of the four children, the oldest twin daughters and two younger brothers, and chronicles experiences from their parents leaving to their time working whatever jobs they could find to get by to boarding school to relationships (or, at the very least, “learning about girls”) to the outcomes of reuniting with their absent parents to the way their lives played out compared to the goals/ideas they each had about their futures.

This is a really interesting format for a novel. And to start I was really into it, because I truly love complex and well-developed sibling relationships. There are so many ways those can play out under the circumstances of growing up and the different ways they each handle similar challenges and realities and I am always fascinated by the possibilities, the similarities and differences that emerge. And, particularly here because I am the oldest (female) with two younger siblings (brothers) there were a lot of dynamics that I was curious to watch emerge over time. I was also really interested because it seemed like, after reading part 1, that we were getting a story told a little bit at a time, over time, from each of the four siblings' perspectives, which could have been really cool. However, after that first part, things started to fall apart a little for me. There was a general feeling of disjointedness between and among the siblings. Their stories, both in a larger overall sense and within the individual vignettes they told, felt very unconnected to me. Even with the two oldest being twins, their stories seemed so separate from each other that I almost felt like I was more reading a collection of short stories that took place in the same neighborhood (separately but in proximity) than anything else. And the younger brothers felt at least equally, if not more so, removed. Especially because, in the final section, the only two perspectives we are given are from the twin sisters, and the boys are just "off in America." Which is fine, as it was true, but since we got their POVs in the beginning, I didn't understand why we didn't get a wrap-up from them as well. that then, in retrospect, made their earlier perspectives seem even further unrelated. The unequal development of the details of the boys' lives, both in time and detail, made me wonder why they were there to begin with, and perhaps the entire novel would have been more compelling if that time had been spent giving the twins even more depth. Just, in a general sense, there was a lot of promise in the structure of this novel that, at least for me, wasn't fulfilled and, thus, my investment in the characters was lost in the uncoordinated jumps between them.

On the other hand, I do want to recognize some of the content of the novel, past the structure and writing, because it touched on some incredibly important topics in a way that was very illustrative. Primarily, the way Abraham demonstrates the role of the church in the cultural subjugation of women in Nigeria is insightful and, I believe extrapolatable to many other countries and cultures in which religion holds an important place. The hypocrisy of those protected by their position of power within the religious structure, similar to any figure whose position holds a level of power, was really center-stage here. The leeway powerful church leaders are given, the degree to which others will turn their heads away and ignore behavior that in direct contradiction to church doctrine, is matched only by the opposing lack of understanding those same leaders extend to their followers. While, of course, this is not a universal rule, it is historically and internationally more true than not. And it is on full display in these pages. Even beyond that here, Abraham shows the weaponization of church and tradition against women, in ways spiritual and social and interpersonal relationships (romantic and platonic and family). She attempts, I think, to deepen this by showing how much worse much of this can be without parental guidance or protection, but I'm not sure that piece totally clicked, for me.

Overall, this portrait of a family told in alternating POV vignettes, over a chronological unfolding, was solid, but fairly disjointed. I liked the themes and appreciated the messages the author was sharing, but a little too much was missing to make it possible for me to really fall into it completely.

“I learned when I was a little girl that people always lie. I am not sure everyone means to lie. It is just that they have in their hearts ideas of who they should be, and they are trying to convince themselves that they are who they insist on being. It is tiring.”

“My family unraveled rapidly, in messy loose knots, hastening away from one another, shamefaced and lonesome, injured solitary animals in a happy world.”

“‘A son of a lion is a lion.’ A son of a foolish man who loses all his money to fraudsters is what? A son of a poor man whose wife leaves him is what? A son of a man who runs away, leaving his children with his mother, is what?”

“Beauty was a gift, but what was I to do with it? It was fortunate to be beautiful and desired. It made people smile at me. I was used to strangers wishing me well. But what is a girl’s beauty, but a man’s promise of reward? What was my beauty but a proclamation of potential, an illusion of choice?”

“No one makes plans for suffering.”

“I did not know anything but the mother she used to be. That comparing and contrasting was my burden. I did not pay the price that she did, so America was not at all beautiful for me. What is the value of a thing but the price a buyer pays for it? How can I expect someone who went to prison for a chance to live in a country not to be excited when she got that chance? I did not really hate my mother, I did not even hate America. How can you hate something you do not know? America will always be, to me, the country that stole my mother and sent back something unrecognizable in her place. I will not call that country beautiful, or its people beloved.”

“I know what I am doing, using Scripture for my own ends. It is impossible to spend so much time reading and teaching the Bible and be unskilled in using it as a weapon. Does not the Bible in the book of Hebrews refer to its content as a two-edged sword, cutting and dividing?”

“It is a common mistake, to hear a story about tragedy and disbelieve it because the telling is off. We think to ourselves, how does the storyteller know this? We are asking the wrong question. The right question is, why is the storyteller telling me this story?”

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sarahholliday's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The writing is clear & sharp, with each character's voice and personality shining through. The cultural observations are incisive, and the blend of styles really serve to convey the myriad experiences of Lagos each sibling carries.

I don't think the structure, though innovative, works for the good of the story. Each chapter becomes a vignette, without much of a unifying force to bring them together.

Not my favorite book, but one I'm glad to have read.

Content Warnings

izzy_a's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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