A review by purplemuskogee
We Need to Talk About Money by Otegha Uwagba

informative reflective medium-paced

3.75

Otegha Uwagba, writer and journalist, starts this book with her family's arrival in London ("a city inexplicably enamoured of the colour grey") from Nigeria, her happy childhood in Elephant and Castle, her parents hiding their financial worries as well as they could, and supporting her education. As she secures a scholarship to go to a private school, and then earns a place in Oxford, she details her relationship with money, and with others who often had more than her. The shape of the book is funny - half memoir, half collection of essays. I think it could be both but it could have been done with more grace - the autobiographical details are interesting and what makes the book so engaging, but they were lost in some of the longer chapters. She does a great job though at keeping readers interested by touching on many different topics - beauty (how expensive it is, but how much you have to lose financially and professionally if you are perceived as not doing enough), living (renting in London especially), work and being paid fairly for one's job, asking for a raise, etc. It was a clever mix of academic studies on women and wages, historical facts, and Uwagba's personal experience. 

Free copy shared by Netgalley.