cakt1991 's review for:

The Sun Sets in Singapore by Kehinde Fadipe

4.0

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 The Sun Sets in Singapore was highly recommended by author Nenia Campbell, who I follow on Threads and who happens to share my love for messy, often unlikable female characters. With a comp to Crazy Rich Asians, due to the setting, but following Black (primarily Nigerian) expats, I was further sold. It’s just the sort of soapy drama I adore, along with the picturesque, well-drawn setting of Singapore, and I was sucked in from page one, with it not letting me go until I was done. 

To call these characters messy is somewhat of an understatement. Some of their drama is a bit over-the-top and ridiculous, but each of them stand out in their own ways. Dara is a corporate lawyer hoping to make partner at her firm but is in competition for the position, Lillian is a former pianist dealing with problems in her marriage, and Amaka is a banker reckoning with the scandal of her birth out of wedlock. All of them had their wild moments, but they all felt grounded within the realm of the narrative, even if some of their actions seem rather heightened at times. And in spite of crossing the line, I did find each of them endearing and they all grew and evolved over the course of the story through their processes of self-discovery. Having a man be at the center of each of their arcs, and the same man at that, was a bit cliche, but I did like how this added another layer of connectivity to them beyond what had already been established. 

This was a lot of fun, and I’m open to reading more from Kehinde Fadipe in the future. I’d recommend it if you enjoy soapy contemporary dramas following Black women in international settings.