A review by sharese_reads
His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie

emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Have you ever been reading a book and half way through you know what you are going to say? And then by the end the author has turned everything on it’s head and burst the whole notion of what you thought was the character development open? That is exactly what happened to me in @peacemedie’s #HisOnlyWife. 

In His Only Wife Afi is arranged to be married to Eli. It is an arrangement made by Aunty, Eli’s mother. With the intent that Afi convince Eli to leave his evil girlfriend with whom he lives and shares a child. What transpires is at once uncomfortable, heart wrenching, breathtaking and in the end entirely relatable to anyone who has been in a situation similar to Afi’s 🙋🏼‍♀️. 

Initially I arched my eyebrow at the stark diversion between the two women the way that “the woman” was described as everything we in American society deem least appeasing about a black woman (even though neither the author nor any characters in the book are American- I ‘m stating this from my lens as I am): dark, mannish, angry, dismissive, having children just to get money. While Afi is all the opposite of that: light, womanly, eager to please, in it for the “right” reasons. But Medie turns all of this on its heads so intricately that by the time it all turns over you are left breathless.

Medie is a gender and politics scholar and that plays out beautifully in the book, her depth and range of the intricacies of how the politics of the main character’s culture influence who she is and the goings on around her are well established. I finished this book with my heart racing and with a hope that there is a sequel. 🙏🏻Has anyone heard this might be happening? She definitely left an opening for one!