BOOK REVIEW - A SPELL OF GOOD THINGS

A Spell of Good Things by Ayobami Adebayo (Out 9th February 2023)

Format: Trade Paperback

Publisher: Knopf (US) and Canongate (UK)

Published: 9th February 2023

Setting: Nigeria

Rating: 5 Stars

My Copy was an Advanced Proof Read Copy provided by PRH

Synopsis:

After a government edict cut his father's job, Eniola's family has been struggling to survive. His secondary school teachers beat him because of his unpaid fees, and his parents are behind on the rent and cannot pay for his apprenticeship at a tailoring shop. Nevertheless, he strives to make himself useful, folding wrappers and trying to forget about how he's taunted by schoolmates.

Wuraola, the daughter of the tailoring shop's most valued customer, is an exhausted young doctor who can barely catch any sleep as she works long hours in a public hospital. After her boyfriend proposes, their relationship accelerates towards marriage even as his darker side is exposed, risking her family's spell of good things.

Meanwhile, Eniola becomes caught in a tangle of decisions that will bring him into collision with political forces in the city, and harm his family and Wuraola's in the process. Following the lives of Eniola, Wuraola and their relatives, the novel traces the entwined fates of two families in a Nigerian city, one with all the fortune in the world and one that cannot catch a break. (source: Goodreads)

My Thoughts……….

When an author writes an incredible debut such as ‘Stay with Me’, I get a little apprehensive and sceptical about picking up the second book – partly because I do not want to get disappointed and have to take them down the pedestal I have placed them on, or simply because I’m doubtful that they can top their debut. Well, Ayobami shattered these ridiculous notions and fears of mine and delivered such a strong and powerful second book. It took me back to the intense feelings I had in 2017 reading Stay with Me, and the feeling of dread and being emotionally spent at the end.

A Spell of Good Things is the parallel story of Eniola, a teenager whose dream for a good education and a bright future is curtailed by his father’s continued unemployment and subsequent sinking into depression which throws the family deeper and deeper into poverty (we need a whole conversation on Eniola’s father), and Wuraola, a privileged doctor from a wealthy and connected family on her first year of residency at an underfunded government hospital. Two people living in the same city who seem worlds apart, whose familial and societal expectations weigh heavily on each of them and who in the face of political and economic turmoil, their separate worlds are brought to a head and their lives collide in the most heartbreaking of ways.

Speaking on the book, Ayobami reveals that the idea for the book was conceived “after a detour compelled me to realize what remained invisible to me in a town that I had long called home”

This is so poignantly reflected in this book – that sharp divide between the haves and the have-nots. We often move around in our bubbles of indifference oblivious to how interconnected we really are. We hardly ever stop to consider that somebody’s inability to put food on their table might directly affect our ability to enjoy our full plates. Through Eniola and Wuraola story, Ayobami forces us to reckon with this sobering reality.

Four takeaways from this book;

1. Ayobami is a very generous story teller – she gives a lot of time to all her characters. She moulds them with such care. At the end of it, you’ll be forgiven if you questioned who the book was really about. All the characters are so well developed and they all come to life so vividly.

2. Ayobami understands the human condition, human psyche & human nature - she is deeply concerned with human connections and human emotions. She understand the causal-effect principle about how certain actions will spur certain reactions and why as humans we behave the way we do.

3. Ayobami will draw at your heartstrings. She will reach into that organ that pumps your blood and tag at it. She will make you cry, and will make you sad, and will make you angry.

4. Ayobami will prove to you that, no, Stay With Me was no fluke. She didn’t just get lucky – SHE IS A DAMN GOOD WRITER!!

I am so glad I got to read this book and more excited for it to be released to the world and the conversations it will inspire. Please pre-order this if you can.