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triple_m's review
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
A very beautiful story about the complexity of being human and exploring one’s sexual and gender identity in a repressive culture.
Absolutely loved the writing will be checking out more from this author.
But…. Why the incest? ☹️
Absolutely loved the writing will be checking out more from this author.
But…. Why the incest? ☹️
Content Warnings
Graphic: Incest and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Homophobia
Minor: Sexual assault and Rape
pitayacactus's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I loved just about everything about this book. The story, the storytelling, the relationships between characters, the writing style. It would have been 5 stars had it not been for the incest and grief driven infidelity (I don't enjoy incest or cheating but the rest of the book was good enough to not make me dnf.)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Religious bigotry, Domestic abuse, Transphobia, Homophobia, and Incest
Moderate: Infidelity
kasarin's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Incest, Transphobia, Death, Homophobia, and Grief
Moderate: Rape, Infidelity, Domestic abuse, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Violence, Sexism, and Sexual content
Minor: Sexual harassment, Lesbophobia, Infertility, Hate crime, Miscarriage, and Animal death
miaaa_lenaaa's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Grief and identity
Potentially spoilers!!
Potentially spoilers!!
‘Some people can't see softness without wanting to hurt it.’
‘if you didn't tell other people, was it real or was it just something the two of you were telling yourselves?’
‘“I’m not sure my belief matters," he says. "If it is, it is, whether I believe it or not."’
‘ No one else could feel that lifetime of loss. No one else had lost him more than she had, yet they cried in front of her as if it meant something. They're still children, Kavita tried to tell herself, not mature enough to do her the courtesy of keeping their tears in their bedrooms, among their own complete families. But still she thought of them as selfish brats without home training or compassion or empathy, and this in turn made her angry at these girls she knew she still loved, somewhere under the rage and pain and the grief that she felt belonged to her and only her.’
‘“We can't keep insisting he was who we thought he was, when he wanted to be someone else and he died being that person, Chika. We failed, don't you see We didn't see him and we failed."’
‘when you've stood on ground and known your child's bones are rotting beneath you, rage and ego fade like dust in a strong wind.’
Content Warnings
Graphic: Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, Vomit, Miscarriage, Rape, Blood, Homophobia, Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Misogyny, Grief, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Transphobia, and Violence
30something_reads's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
You win again, Emezi.
3 for 3 on the ugly crying. This one probably tops all the others. I'm literally crying right now as I write this. Everything was so beautiful and devastating all at once.
3 for 3 on the ugly crying. This one probably tops all the others. I'm literally crying right now as I write this. Everything was so beautiful and devastating all at once.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Religious bigotry, Dysphoria, Grief, and Sexism
Moderate: Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Transphobia, Incest, and Homophobia
Minor: Rape, Bullying, and Blood
lilacsandliterature's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Transphobia, Death, Incest, Sexual content, and Rape
frankieclc's review against another edition
5.0
I think the fact I’ve rated this 5/5 considering how much I did not enjoy reading about some of the context shows how well this book is written
Content Warnings
Graphic: Transphobia, Incest, Sexual violence, Sexual content, and Grief
Moderate: Dysphoria, Rape, and Blood
therainbowshelf's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
This wasn't a pick for me because I don't love literary fiction because it's usually dismal, depressing, and has horrible things happen for no reason. Of course, with that understanding of both this genre and Emezi's work, I went into this with appropriately low expectations of joy. It seems like an intriguing book and takes a hard look at struggles, especially for women.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Grief, Homophobia, Infidelity, Transphobia, Blood, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Emotional abuse, and Mental illness
Minor: Rape
nannahnannah's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Pet was my introduction to Akwaeke Emezi, and I fell in love with their creativity. Here, their prose has matured in leaps and bounds (which makes sense in a way, since Pet was YA), and they’ve included themes that I’ve found very challenging. Even if it wasn’t a book I particularly enjoyed, I found it a rewarding read.
Representation:
- most characters are Nigerian, and several are biracial
- Vivek is Nigerian and Indian, as well as gay and gender fluid
- Osita is a closeted gay/bi man
- other secondary characters are sapphic
Vivek Oji was born the day his grandmother died, and he carries the same starfish-shaped scar on his foot that she did, a possible sign of reincarnation. He grows up experiencing strange mysterious blackouts and periods of dissociation, but the only one who knows about it is his cousin, Osita.
Even as he gets older, more reclusive, more strange to his parents, and befriends the daughters of the “Nigerwives”, the foreign-born women who, like his own mother, married Nigerian men, he and Osita have the closest bond. But when their relationship deepens and transforms, and Vivek decides not to hide who is anymore outside of the home, his life is cut short.
The book is told in multiple PoVs, through the eyes of Vivek’s loved ones. It uses Vivek’s point of view maybe once or twice, when the emotional impact is highest. Even then, it’s maybe a few sentences. He’s meant to be a kind of enigmatic figure, his ambiguousness manifested through his illness that is neither named nor ever explained, the possible reincarnation, and his “odd” behavior that’s described by each PoV character.
Although I understand the reason for his mysteriousness (that he’s possibly the reincarnation of his grandmother), I don’t necessarily like the fact that part of it has to include an illness. But there could be cultural factors here that I’m not aware of, so that will be all I’ll say on it.
I’ll get to the incest in a bit, but one thing that did really bother me was the treatment of Elizabeth. Something happened to her when she was younger that was largely Vivek’s fault Vivek literally watched her and Osita have sex, without her consent, and then came into the room. . Vivek is considered blameless because he has those blackouts, but he still chose to spy on them! Then, much later, when they’re all older and Elizabeth is dating a woman (and it’s hinted at that she became a lesbian due to trauma, which is a mood), Vivek makes a dismissive comment about how Elizabeth should just be better or less traumatized from that childhood event. It’s weird how the book makes a sort of sinless being of Vivek, when we the readers can see, or at least I hope everyone is seeing, that he’s actually quite flawed.
But that might be the point. Even though everyone in the book seems to see him as a sort of angelic, larger-than-life creature, we can see him as a complete person--a completed picture through the eyes of everyone who loved him.
Everyone in this book is flawed, actually, and I love that. Osita in particular has flaws by the bucketful, and even though I didn’t really like him, I very much appreciated him as a character. He was written very well.
However, the wonderfully crafted characters hit a little bump when Vivek’s friends shows his parents pictures of him as he truly was, Vivek and Nnemndi, a gender fluid person. That night, Vivek’s mother denies it completely. She says things like, “he was sick”, “that’s not my son”, etc., but then the next day she has this passionate speech to her husband about trans rights. She then chips part of Vivek’s gravestone off with the hoe (is that even possible?), to include the name Nnemndi on his grave.
Okay, now before I end this thing, I’ll touch upon the incest. It’s a major part of this book. I’m not sure why, other than I remember seeing someone say that the author wanted you to be uncomfortable with it while you were reading and to almost examine that feeling a little bit. Well, they succeeded. I was definitely uncomfortable. I’m not sure, though, why incest is more normalized in the text than same-sex attraction. I know in other cultures that romance between first cousins isn’t considered incest, but I don’t think that’s the case with Igbo people (also side note, but WHAT was the deal with the leads having anal sex using spit as lube ??).
Despite my criticisms, this is a very good book. It just wasn’t an enjoyable one for me. However, I was so ecstatic to read a nonlinear plot! I was just talking to a friend about how much I needed that.
Representation:
- most characters are Nigerian, and several are biracial
- Vivek is Nigerian and Indian, as well as gay and gender fluid
- Osita is a closeted gay/bi man
- other secondary characters are sapphic
Vivek Oji was born the day his grandmother died, and he carries the same starfish-shaped scar on his foot that she did, a possible sign of reincarnation. He grows up experiencing strange mysterious blackouts and periods of dissociation, but the only one who knows about it is his cousin, Osita.
Even as he gets older, more reclusive, more strange to his parents, and befriends the daughters of the “Nigerwives”, the foreign-born women who, like his own mother, married Nigerian men, he and Osita have the closest bond. But when their relationship deepens and transforms, and Vivek decides not to hide who is anymore outside of the home, his life is cut short.
The book is told in multiple PoVs, through the eyes of Vivek’s loved ones. It uses Vivek’s point of view maybe once or twice, when the emotional impact is highest. Even then, it’s maybe a few sentences. He’s meant to be a kind of enigmatic figure, his ambiguousness manifested through his illness that is neither named nor ever explained, the possible reincarnation, and his “odd” behavior that’s described by each PoV character.
Although I understand the reason for his mysteriousness (that he’s possibly the reincarnation of his grandmother), I don’t necessarily like the fact that part of it has to include an illness. But there could be cultural factors here that I’m not aware of, so that will be all I’ll say on it.
I’ll get to the incest in a bit, but one thing that did really bother me was the treatment of Elizabeth. Something happened to her when she was younger that was largely Vivek’s fault
But that might be the point. Even though everyone in the book seems to see him as a sort of angelic, larger-than-life creature, we can see him as a complete person--a completed picture through the eyes of everyone who loved him.
Everyone in this book is flawed, actually, and I love that. Osita in particular has flaws by the bucketful, and even though I didn’t really like him, I very much appreciated him as a character. He was written very well.
However, the wonderfully crafted characters hit a little bump when Vivek’s friends shows his parents pictures of him as he truly was, Vivek and Nnemndi, a gender fluid person.
Okay, now before I end this thing, I’ll touch upon the incest. It’s a major part of this book. I’m not sure why, other than I remember seeing someone say that the author wanted you to be uncomfortable with it while you were reading and to almost examine that feeling a little bit. Well, they succeeded. I was definitely uncomfortable. I’m not sure, though, why incest is more normalized in the text than same-sex attraction. I know in other cultures that romance between first cousins isn’t considered incest, but I don’t think that’s the case with Igbo people (also side note, but WHAT was the deal with the leads having anal sex using spit as lube ??).
Despite my criticisms, this is a very good book. It just wasn’t an enjoyable one for me. However, I was so ecstatic to read a nonlinear plot! I was just talking to a friend about how much I needed that.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Incest, Rape, Domestic abuse, and Homophobia
Moderate: Sexism and Misogyny
mladd28's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Sexual content
Moderate: Homophobia, Sexism, and Transphobia
Minor: Sexual assault and Rape