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A review by ilegnealle
What a Time to Be Alone: The Slumflower's Guide to Why You Are Already Enough by Chidera Eggerue
2.0
I really, really wanted to love this book. The whole drama around Chidera Eggerue and Florence Given made me so mad that I was really rooting for What a Time to Be Alone, which maybe lead to me having really high expectations for this - and sadly, it fell relatively flat.
Don't get me wrong, I still fully support Chidera Eggerue and think it is abhorrent how FG dealt with the accusations against her/her management. (If you don't know what I'm talking about - CE and FG used to work with the same management, I think. CE released this book in 2018, FG released her arguably more famous "Women Don't Owe You Pretty" in 2020. Now, if you have read both books, it becomes very obvious that the content of both books is extremely similar, and even the layout with the drawings resembles each other a lot. Now this heavily looks like FG copied CE's work. FG's management has even bought ad space so that her book shows up when you search for CE's work online. It's sad, really - because FG has a whole chapter of her book dedicated to "checking your white privilege" and uplifting black women's voices - yet she shamelessly copied CE's book and even references CE's work directly in her book (hell, the title WDOYP even comes from something CE has said) yet CE has not received any money for the work she has done that FG has exploited.)
Now. I support Chidera Eggerue. But this book was not as life-changing as I expected. It might have been, had I not been involved in feminism and self-love for the past 5-6 years.
I'll say that I really enjoyed the Igbo proverbs, and the illustrations were stunning. I also liked the (short) passage on white privilege and white feminism, because I feel like as a white woman this is an area were I still have a lot to learn.
But content-wise it felt like this book was telling me what to be (unapologetically myself, putting myself first, not engaging in toxic relationships etc.) but not how to be that way. I really tried not to read this book in one sitting because I really wanted to take in the message, so I read every passage at least twice, but I still feel like I can't really remember most that was written in it.
I also felt like the book contradicted itself a lot? Like it's telling you that everyone around you is toxic, but you personally should not change and be unapologetically yourself - which doesn't really work out, doesn't it? I sadly couldn't find the direct quotes of what I'm referencing now, but there was one line about being yourself regardless of how that affects other people and that they will heal from it in their own time - and then there was another saying that certain people can definitely be the reason why relationships fail, but you are not. Like?? I don't know... It just felt relatively arrogant most of the time and like the reader is the world's main character and all the other people they encounter throughout their lives are just tools for the reader to grow or outlive their true selves. But that just doesn't work well if everyone is the main character, you know?
So overall, I would say that it works as a kind of entry into feminism (or actually, self-love probably fits better here), and I would definitely prefer you reading this book over FG's work. But if you're not new to self-love and feminism, this book probably won't give you anything new. And we should definitely question some of the double-standards that are implemented in this work.
Don't get me wrong, I still fully support Chidera Eggerue and think it is abhorrent how FG dealt with the accusations against her/her management. (If you don't know what I'm talking about - CE and FG used to work with the same management, I think. CE released this book in 2018, FG released her arguably more famous "Women Don't Owe You Pretty" in 2020. Now, if you have read both books, it becomes very obvious that the content of both books is extremely similar, and even the layout with the drawings resembles each other a lot. Now this heavily looks like FG copied CE's work. FG's management has even bought ad space so that her book shows up when you search for CE's work online. It's sad, really - because FG has a whole chapter of her book dedicated to "checking your white privilege" and uplifting black women's voices - yet she shamelessly copied CE's book and even references CE's work directly in her book (hell, the title WDOYP even comes from something CE has said) yet CE has not received any money for the work she has done that FG has exploited.)
Now. I support Chidera Eggerue. But this book was not as life-changing as I expected. It might have been, had I not been involved in feminism and self-love for the past 5-6 years.
I'll say that I really enjoyed the Igbo proverbs, and the illustrations were stunning. I also liked the (short) passage on white privilege and white feminism, because I feel like as a white woman this is an area were I still have a lot to learn.
But content-wise it felt like this book was telling me what to be (unapologetically myself, putting myself first, not engaging in toxic relationships etc.) but not how to be that way. I really tried not to read this book in one sitting because I really wanted to take in the message, so I read every passage at least twice, but I still feel like I can't really remember most that was written in it.
I also felt like the book contradicted itself a lot? Like it's telling you that everyone around you is toxic, but you personally should not change and be unapologetically yourself - which doesn't really work out, doesn't it? I sadly couldn't find the direct quotes of what I'm referencing now, but there was one line about being yourself regardless of how that affects other people and that they will heal from it in their own time - and then there was another saying that certain people can definitely be the reason why relationships fail, but you are not. Like?? I don't know... It just felt relatively arrogant most of the time and like the reader is the world's main character and all the other people they encounter throughout their lives are just tools for the reader to grow or outlive their true selves. But that just doesn't work well if everyone is the main character, you know?
So overall, I would say that it works as a kind of entry into feminism (or actually, self-love probably fits better here), and I would definitely prefer you reading this book over FG's work. But if you're not new to self-love and feminism, this book probably won't give you anything new. And we should definitely question some of the double-standards that are implemented in this work.