Simi Bedford's epic tale of 3 generations of Africans was a delight to read. The extent of her research is jaw drop-inducing, particularly in the first volume, set in the ancienty city of Oyo (now in South Western Nigeria) in the 18th century. Her characters were vivid, convincing personalities, and I was hooked from the very beginning and all through the journey. That said, when the characters encounter Christianity, there is a tendency for them to get just a tad preachy and irritating. And she also has a slightly annoying habit of using and reusing a particular song from Old Oyo and in some parts flogs certain themes to death.
BUT it is such an ambitious, inspiring story, that… Read more
Dayo Forster's writing is lovely - simple and fuss-free, yet colorful in the way it lightly rolls along.
But the story she sets out to tell is incredibly dull.
The idea that Ayodele's life will run 3 different courses depending on which of 3/4 men she decides to sleep with, is not entirely unique or awe-inspiring in itself. As such, I expected more from the story, but found that it fell flat in many places. Especially those places where she could've pulled the reader in, and given us more insight into why exactly she set out to write the long book in the first place. Ayodele as a character is so full of spunk in her early years, and so FLAT in middle age (in all 3… Read more
I've read the 3 or 4 reviews below mine and find that I agree with both the positive and negative comments on Diana Evans' first novel. I read this book in the summer and found that after the first 2 or 3 chapters I lacked the motivation to continue. I was under quite a bit of time pressure at the time I was going to be attending a private reading being given by Diana herself the next day, but I just could not find the motivation to continue.
So I attended the reading having only read the first couple of chapters, and fired a few questions at the very withdrawn author who was neither very eloquent nor admirable as authors go. She didn't impress me, but the one thing that struck… Read more
