Title: Ogadinma Or, Everything Will be All Right
Author: Ukamaka Olisakwe
Narrator: Adjoa Andoh
Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Pub Date: 10 Sep
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Many thanks to W F Howes for gifting me a copy of this amazing audiobook via Netgalley, in exchange for my impartial review.
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Trigger and Content Warning: Rape, Physical Abuse, Domestic Violence, Substance abuse (alcohol), Abortion, and Post Partum Depression.
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This was a raw, powerful, and heartbreakingly beautiful book. I felt so many negative feelings while reading this. They weren’t towards the author or her work (which was superb) but towards a lot of the characters and the events the main character went through because of them.
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Ogadinma, the eponymous character, went through hell, even from the opening chapters of a book. Set in Nigeria (even though it was set a couple of decades from now), there were so many elements and events and I could relate with, and I’m sure a lot Nigerian born and bred readers will relate with when they read this. Ogadinma’s story starts out with her (desperate) search for admission into the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. She had other options she could have easily gotten into, like a university in the North. As a result of tribal and political tensions rocking Nigeria at the time, her father deemed it safer for her to school in the East, so the only option acceptable was UNN. That led her to the tiger’s den, the tiger being Barrister Chima. Her experience with Barrister Chima was traumatizing and led to her life as she knew it falling apart.
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The author did the most amazing job of weaving so many things together at the start of the book, and working these things to serve as a catalyst for the next part of Ogadinma’s story. After her father sent her off to Lagos following her abortion, she’s thrust into a new life and blindsided into a relationship, and later marriage with Tobe, her aunt’s brother who’s almost twice her age. Still as a result of her experiences with Barr Chima, she sees Tobe as a much better person than he actually is, and she glosses over so many red flags. When things take a turn for the worse in Tobe’s life due to the military rule in the country, Tobe becomes a monster and Ogadinma gets more than she ever bargained for.
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Ogadinma grew up without a mother, and her father who had been everything to her from her childhood, became something else entirely because of “purity culture”. Her aunty Ngozi was also another very terrible character in this book. They did nothing but blame Ogadinma for her trauma and abuse, and led her to the slaughterhouse more than once.
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I really wish I could say all I want to regarding this masterpiece, but that would result in spoiling it for a lot of readers, and I want you to read this book with a fresh set of eyes and experience everything as freshly and rawly as I did.
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The author delved into a lot of important themes and topics, and shed light on many things. She discussed Post Partum Depression, domestic abuse, sexual liberation, how the victim is blamed over and over for their abuse, and so many other things. She not only discussed them, but she did this expertly.
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The narration was really something. On one hand, I really love Adjoa Andoh and her narration on other books. She wasn’t needed here. This is a Nigerian book set in Nigeria with Igbo primary characters. An Igbo narrator should have done the narration here because the pronunciation of the names was so off. I got so many names wrong and I had to keep replaying at the slowest speed. I’m still not sure I got a lot of the names right.
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I breezed through this book in less than 4 hours because it was so good and I just had to know how Ogadinma’s story ended. It was really worth it and I loved every bit of it. I highly recommend this book for all readers.
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Blurb:
Ogadinma Or, Everything Will be All Right tells the story of the naïve and trusting teenager Ogadinma as she battles against Nigeria’s societal expectations in the 1980s. After a rape and unwanted pregnancy leave her exiled from her family in Kano, thwarting her plans to go to university, she is sent to her aunt’s in Lagos and pressured into a marriage with an older man.
When their whirlwind romance descends into abuse and indignity, Ogadinma is forced to channel her independence and resourcefulness to escape a fate that appears all but inevitable. Ogadinma, the UK debut by Ukamaka Olisakwe, introduces a heroine for whom it is impossible not to root, and announces the author as a gifted chronicler of the patriarchal experience.
‘An intimate and dazzling exploration of the life and times of a young Nigerian woman whose move to the capital city of Lagos leads to a series of encounters, which are by turns disorienting, revelatory and tragic.’ Christopher Merrill, author of Self-Portrait with Dogwood
‘Written in vivid, engaging prose, this is the story of one woman’s journey to independence.’ Chinelo Okparanta, author of Under the Udala Trees and Happiness, Like Water: Stories
The Author
Ukamaka Olisakwe is a Nigerian novelist, short story writer and screenwriter. In 2014 she was chosen as one of Sub-Saharan Africa’s most promising writers under the age of 40 by Africa 39. She was born in Kano, Nigeria, and in 2016, was a resident at the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program.
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