A review by mmccombs
Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot

4.0

Okparanta’s prose is stunning and this story felt deeply personal and handled with care. I think it came up a bit short for me in its structure and it’s characters, I didn’t really connect with anyone outside of Ijeoma and maybe her mother. I think just doing flashbacks or just following Ijeoma’s story linearly would have worked, but something about the mixture of both, alongside folktales and stories made it a bit muddled and unevenly paced. Ultimately, this was a really emotionally riveting story of love and I still really enjoyed what it had to say.
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