I read a few glowing reviews of this book and after I saw the description, I knew I had to read it for myself.  Luckily, the eBook was still available on Net Galley  to request for review.  Sorry to Net Galley and Other Press for the lateness of this review.


12 year old Blessing and her brother Ezikiel knew they had it good, living with their father and mother, Mama, who both had jobs.  They lived in a nice home in Lagos, Nigeria and attended a well regarded private school. 

All that came crumbling down when Mama  found their father with another woman.  He left the family and wouldn’t send any money their way.  Mama was fired from her job at the hotel because only married women were allowed to work there.  Mama saw no alternative other than moving back to her parents house, in the village of Niger Delta.

Ezikiel said, “Warri is not safe. And those villages outside are even worse! Swamp villages! I googled Warri at the Internet café. Oil bunkering, hostage taking, illness, guns, and poverty. What about my asthma? They burn poisonous chemicals straight into the air! It’s not a safe place to live.”


Mama said that she grew up there and that it was safe.  When they arrived, they were greeted warmly by their Grandma and Grandfather, named Alhaji.  They were better off than many families in the region but that wasn’t say much.  Blessing and Ezikiel were in for a shock.  There was no was no running water nor electricity.  As irony, there was an electric fan in one of the bedrooms.  The outhouse just had a floor with a hole cut out of it and boy did it smell.

Alhaji had an engineering degree but there were no jobs for locals anymore.  They were all given to white men, shipped in to work.  Eventually Mama got a job at one of the restaurants in the oil company’s compound, she made a bit of money to help the family. 

There was barely enough for Ezikiel to go to school but not Blessing.  Grandma took Blessing under her wing and started training her to become a midwife.  Blessing loved babies, so it was a good fit but the hours were unpredictable and they often only got paid with fish rather than money.  The job was also dangerous because they had to leave their compound and go to other villages.  In fact Blessing barely escaped being raped by a local policeman because he wanted a bigger bribe from Granma.     

Later, Ezikiel was shot by one of the local rebel boy’s group but recovered in the hospital.  However, the hospital would not release him until the family could pay for his treatment.  He missed so much school that he didn’t pass his exams and was expelled.  It was heart breaking because he had been so determined to become a doctor.  However, after that he completely changed and refused to go back to school even if Grandfather could have arranged it.

This is an inspiring and heartbreaking story of the struggles of an Nigerian family.  It was much more powerful than the description of it implied.  It was political, with the western oil company taking away all of the jobs, which was the reason for all the different violent rebel groups in the region.  They not only kidnapped white workers for ransom but raped and killed many innocent village people.

This novel is so well written and is a must read for anyone who loves family sagas or wants to get a sense of what it is like to be born Nigerian.

4/5

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She is Too Fond of Books

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