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A review by jazzyreads_99
The Nigerwife by Vanessa Walters
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
As a black woman myself, I’ve been looking for more black female authors to read from and support. I love reading black literature and hearing the thoughts of different black people from all around the world. But in all honesty, I honestly hated this book so much. And that disappoints me because I wanted to like this book so bad.
This is the first book I’ve read this year that I’ve given one star. This book is completely marketed wrong. Not a thriller by any means. More of just a family/rich people drama. (And even with that being said, it’s still a whole lot of nothing.) The author includes way way WAYYY too many details of random, pointless things throughout the book instead of writing actual story. And this is clearly done, in my opinion, just to fill the pages up. I’m assuming she does this to pace the story and not give too much away too soon. But, it’s done so poorly. I would start reading a chapter that would begin with a small crumb of story and then the author would just divulge into a TON of pointless details that didn’t matter in the end and would go on for so long, I literally forgot what the beginning of the chapter was even about.
This book claimed that it was going to be about the aunt searching for Nicole and eventually find out her “darkest secrets” and that she was involved in something so dark and mysterious ooooh!!! But really, there were no dark secrets and nothing mysterious about this book. The twists were bland and no where near thrilling. (Again, just revealing a bunch of family drama and reasons why the family had beef and using those things as a “twist”, when really and the story does this over and over again as if we didn’t see it coming a mile away.)
The ending was extremely rushed and, as another reviewer here on GoodReads put it, “a hot mess”. And I couldn’t put it better myself. I hate it when a random plot twist (that barely makes any sense) is written into the story just to add a bit of that “shocking” twistiness that the reader has been waiting for for a whole 298 pages. But it’s so rushed and clearly so forced, you can’t help but roll your eyes and say “Are you serious?”, out loud to yourself in the coffee shop you’re reading this book in. Plus, the book is again, written with so many pointless, random, annoyingly unnecessary details that the book feels way longer than it actually is. So by the time you get to the big “plot twists”, you don’t even care anymore because you’ve pretty much guessed everything that’s gonna happen and it took so long to get there, you don’t care. This book makes 303 pages feel like 503 pages.
There’s only one detail that was mentioned in this book that had significance in the end, which was the pear tree. And once the author started giving into what that all meant, it was actually gorgeous, beautiful, somewhat thrilling writing. I just wish I didn’t have to wait until literally the very end to get that writing. I loved learning about the different aspects and complexities about Nigerian culture here. There were some extra things I didn’t know before that I now know (like how some Nigerians will wrap their mangoes newspaper so that they will ripen quicker.) That was an interesting quip, as well as a few other ones. But the majority of Nigerian facts in this book, I feel like these are things most people (atleast black people), already know about Nigerian culture.
All in all, if you love family/rich people dramas, this is definitely for you. If you love thrilling, heart pounding, or at the very least, mysterious thrillers, you can absolutely skip this one.
This is the first book I’ve read this year that I’ve given one star. This book is completely marketed wrong. Not a thriller by any means. More of just a family/rich people drama. (And even with that being said, it’s still a whole lot of nothing.) The author includes way way WAYYY too many details of random, pointless things throughout the book instead of writing actual story. And this is clearly done, in my opinion, just to fill the pages up. I’m assuming she does this to pace the story and not give too much away too soon. But, it’s done so poorly. I would start reading a chapter that would begin with a small crumb of story and then the author would just divulge into a TON of pointless details that didn’t matter in the end and would go on for so long, I literally forgot what the beginning of the chapter was even about.
This book claimed that it was going to be about the aunt searching for Nicole and eventually find out her “darkest secrets” and that she was involved in something so dark and mysterious ooooh!!! But really, there were no dark secrets and nothing mysterious about this book. The twists were bland and no where near thrilling. (Again, just revealing a bunch of family drama and reasons why the family had beef and using those things as a “twist”, when really and the story does this over and over again as if we didn’t see it coming a mile away.)
The ending was extremely rushed and, as another reviewer here on GoodReads put it, “a hot mess”. And I couldn’t put it better myself. I hate it when a random plot twist (that barely makes any sense) is written into the story just to add a bit of that “shocking” twistiness that the reader has been waiting for for a whole 298 pages. But it’s so rushed and clearly so forced, you can’t help but roll your eyes and say “Are you serious?”, out loud to yourself in the coffee shop you’re reading this book in. Plus, the book is again, written with so many pointless, random, annoyingly unnecessary details that the book feels way longer than it actually is. So by the time you get to the big “plot twists”, you don’t even care anymore because you’ve pretty much guessed everything that’s gonna happen and it took so long to get there, you don’t care. This book makes 303 pages feel like 503 pages.
There’s only one detail that was mentioned in this book that had significance in the end, which was the pear tree. And once the author started giving into what that all meant, it was actually gorgeous, beautiful, somewhat thrilling writing. I just wish I didn’t have to wait until literally the very end to get that writing. I loved learning about the different aspects and complexities about Nigerian culture here. There were some extra things I didn’t know before that I now know (like how some Nigerians will wrap their mangoes newspaper so that they will ripen quicker.) That was an interesting quip, as well as a few other ones. But the majority of Nigerian facts in this book, I feel like these are things most people (atleast black people), already know about Nigerian culture.
All in all, if you love family/rich people dramas, this is definitely for you. If you love thrilling, heart pounding, or at the very least, mysterious thrillers, you can absolutely skip this one.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Pedophilia, Child abuse, Rape, and Domestic abuse