A review by shubbard116
The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi

2.0

I definitely should’ve researched this book before diving in. Here’s the deal, do I have differing values and beliefs, yes. But that’s not my issue with this book, because I enjoy reading books out of my comfort zone to help me expand my understanding of people. The thing that annoyed me was that they added so many over-sexualized scenes that I felt took away from the depth of the story. People in the reviews talked about how this book would be historic, transforming the world of reading/writing etc etc. First of all, the main love story is between COUSINS. They share the same grandma! Now I could’ve looked past this because I know other cultures have different views around marrying relatives. But then they created this weird friend group where basically everybody slept with everybody and it was just normal? And when the lover was grieving the loss of Vivek, he slept with Viveks best friend as a way of paying respect to him?? Literally like one day after his death. It wasn’t painted as a sex scene, it was portrayed more as an act of memorial to Viveks death. And what’s more is they had ghost Vivek comment on how he was so glad this happened, loved watching this beautiful act, and felt it was the most meaningful way his lover and best friend could pay their respect to him.. days after his death. ???? The book would’ve been exponentially better, probably a 4 star read for me, if it didn’t have these bizarre sexual encounters that seemed to be added in just because sex sells so they thought let’s sprinkle some of this in even though it doesn’t help the story at all. Ok rant over.