sarahandika 's review for:

Nearly All the Men in Lagos Are Mad by Damilare Kuku

3.75

funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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 To steal a quote, this is - "A book written by a woman, for women, with women’s experience in mind."

This is an extremely relatable and hilarious short story collection. While centered on Lagos and the dating and relationship misadventures of its locals, the stories resonate with anyone familair with the trials and tribulations of the modern dating world or modern relationships in general 

Just from the first line of the first story,

“One night, you will calmly put a knife to your husband's penis and promise to cut it off...," 

the anthology pulls you in and commands your attention.This sets the tone for a collection filled with wit, candor, and a healthy dose of girl talk. The stories read like gist and give you the feeling of being in a juicy gossip session with friends. It's a fun time and phrases like:

“...and no, I can't twerk on your d*ck I've got weak knees - sex should be jeje, easy,” will have you on the floor snorting with laughter.

On the macro level, in my opinion, the strength of the book lay in the stories that felt outstandingly outrageous yet still rooted in reality and hence relatable and easy to imagine. The author, however, fell short in some of the stories that veered too far into the fantastical, feeling disconnected from genuine experiences. I wanted to feel like I'm listening to an actual person sharing their escapades and not like I'm listening to made up stories. Stories like "Beard Gang" and those featuring sudden encounters with billionaires/millionaires, for example, felt implausible, detracting from the authenticity that made the other stories compelling and disrupting the flow of the narrative, pulling me out of the relatable space Kuku so expertly crafted in other stories.

Otherwise, I enjoyed the conversational and casual writing style used in the book, which is simply perfect for the dramatic tone and mood of the book and made it feel lighthearted, funny, witty and saucy all at once. The author also added the perfect amount of pidgin english that made the book feel wonderfully authentic to its setting and its characters, without making it inaccessible to non-pidgin speakers like myself.

Overall, It's the perfect read for anyone looking for some laughs on the lighthearted everyday misadventures "encountered" in the dating and marriage world. It's the perfect reminder for everyone who's gone through such misfortunes that they are not alone in their troubles. Perhaps as best exemplified in the fourth story, 'International Relations,' it's not just the Lagos men that are mad, it's all of them. Therefore, while locally set, the stories are universally experienced.