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A review by maryo12345
The Marriage Monitoring Aunties' Assosication by Ola Awonubi
3.0
I picked up The Marriage Monitoring Aunties’ Association because of the cover and the title. I don’t like reading synopses, they often feel like spoilers to me, so the cover and title is everything. With a name like this, I was expecting a lighthearted romantic comedy filled with overbearing but funny Nigerian or African aunties making snide, hilarious remarks and meddling in the main character’s love life. But that’s not quite what I got.
While the book does feature a few aunties and a very judgmental mother, it wasn’t about a whole association of busybody elders. The title felt misleading because the story centers more on one woman, Sade, and her internal and external struggles around being single at 50, not a quirky auntie-led matchmaking brigade. That was a bit of a disappointment, even though the story itself had enjoyable parts.
Sade is a 50-year-old Christian woman who has never been in a long-term relationship and is still a virgin. She’s successful, owns her own home (which is a huge achievement, especially in today’s economy!), and seems like someone who should be a bit more self-assured. But throughout the audiobook, I honestly kept forgetting she was supposed to be 50. She read more like someone in her 30s, especially in how passive she was with her mom and aunties. Despite their constant critiques and pressure to get married, Sade rarely pushed back or defended herself. I wanted her to be more assertive, more grown, considering her age and life experience.
One of the strongest points of the book is its focus on a woman in her 50s who’s never been in a relationship. That’s something we don’t often see in fiction, and I appreciated that representation. It challenges the societal and religious expectations that say every woman’s life should follow a certain timeline of marriage, kids, etc. But even though the book starts out as if Sade is content in her singleness, it quickly becomes clear that she’s actually very obsessed with getting married. And a lot of that obsession is tied to her Christian beliefs.
Having grown up in the church myself, I understand that environment. The pressure to marry and to marry a man, specifically, is intense. It’s hard to feel genuinely content with being single when the church constantly glorifies marriage and treats it as the ultimate goal for women. So even though I wanted to see a story where the character embraces singleness joyfully and fully, I understood why Sade struggled.
Then comes Jimmy Taylor, the love interest. Their dynamic is filled with tension, mostly because he left the church due to past trauma, and she’s deeply committed to her faith. At first, he’s honest about not wanting marriage again and being unsure about religion. They flirt with the idea of a relationship, but nothing fully develops. Then, out of nowhere, he goes abroad, comes back having reconnected with God, and proposes marriage. And she says yes.
That ending felt rushed and unrealistic. I didn’t like that the book wrapped everything up in a neat little Christian-romance bow. Just because he says he’s found his faith again doesn’t mean their fundamental differences have disappeared and I’m not convinced their religious mismatch wouldn’t cause problems down the line. Faith, especially when it’s central to your identity, isn’t something you can compromise on easily.
Ultimately, I enjoyed the themes of late-life singleness, religious pressure, and cultural expectations, but I wish the book had followed through with more nuance and realism, especially in the ending. It had potential to be a great story about choosing fulfillment outside of marriage or exploring love in unexpected ways, but instead it fell back on familiar tropes.
While the book does feature a few aunties and a very judgmental mother, it wasn’t about a whole association of busybody elders. The title felt misleading because the story centers more on one woman, Sade, and her internal and external struggles around being single at 50, not a quirky auntie-led matchmaking brigade. That was a bit of a disappointment, even though the story itself had enjoyable parts.
Sade is a 50-year-old Christian woman who has never been in a long-term relationship and is still a virgin. She’s successful, owns her own home (which is a huge achievement, especially in today’s economy!), and seems like someone who should be a bit more self-assured. But throughout the audiobook, I honestly kept forgetting she was supposed to be 50. She read more like someone in her 30s, especially in how passive she was with her mom and aunties. Despite their constant critiques and pressure to get married, Sade rarely pushed back or defended herself. I wanted her to be more assertive, more grown, considering her age and life experience.
One of the strongest points of the book is its focus on a woman in her 50s who’s never been in a relationship. That’s something we don’t often see in fiction, and I appreciated that representation. It challenges the societal and religious expectations that say every woman’s life should follow a certain timeline of marriage, kids, etc. But even though the book starts out as if Sade is content in her singleness, it quickly becomes clear that she’s actually very obsessed with getting married. And a lot of that obsession is tied to her Christian beliefs.
Having grown up in the church myself, I understand that environment. The pressure to marry and to marry a man, specifically, is intense. It’s hard to feel genuinely content with being single when the church constantly glorifies marriage and treats it as the ultimate goal for women. So even though I wanted to see a story where the character embraces singleness joyfully and fully, I understood why Sade struggled.
Then comes Jimmy Taylor, the love interest. Their dynamic is filled with tension, mostly because he left the church due to past trauma, and she’s deeply committed to her faith. At first, he’s honest about not wanting marriage again and being unsure about religion. They flirt with the idea of a relationship, but nothing fully develops. Then, out of nowhere, he goes abroad, comes back having reconnected with God, and proposes marriage. And she says yes.
That ending felt rushed and unrealistic. I didn’t like that the book wrapped everything up in a neat little Christian-romance bow. Just because he says he’s found his faith again doesn’t mean their fundamental differences have disappeared and I’m not convinced their religious mismatch wouldn’t cause problems down the line. Faith, especially when it’s central to your identity, isn’t something you can compromise on easily.
Ultimately, I enjoyed the themes of late-life singleness, religious pressure, and cultural expectations, but I wish the book had followed through with more nuance and realism, especially in the ending. It had potential to be a great story about choosing fulfillment outside of marriage or exploring love in unexpected ways, but instead it fell back on familiar tropes.