What I'm Reading

Over the weekend, I read this nice book "The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's wives" by Lola Shoneyin. 

Where do I even start from? Okay, first, I know the book is not new; but keep your judgements to yourself. Thank you very much. I loved the book. It was funny for a very long time and then after some time, some serious lessons started to find their way to my brain. 

I'm an Ibadan girl (or I used to be); so it was quite easy to relate with many of the places she spoke about in the book and at some point, I could practically feel myself moving along the road as the characters in the book were moving and even sometimes, I'd say to myself "Oh, I know this place". Lol.

For a first novel, the author did a great job. I liked how she portrayed the family as a fully "Yoruba-ish" family, but also as people somehow in tune with the modern world. 

Yep, so in case you didn't know that polygamy is plenty work, go get the book; it will help you understand better. Seriously though, I have never been a fan of anything beyond one man, one wife. It's like intentionally digging your own grave when you start taking a second, third, fourth and so on wife. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think two or more wives of the same man can co-habit without even the tiniest bit of jealousy, hatred, envy and so on.

This is the cover of the one I read

Brief storyline: Baba Segi married four wives: Iya Segi, Iya Tope, Iya Femi and Bolanle (aka Iya nobody) and between the first three wives, he had seven children that he loved dearly. Turns out that Baba Segi's "pride" was brutally bruised by a series of events with the help of modern technology. #EndofStory. Sorry, I suck at summaries so I'm so sure I just confused the person reading this further. Forgive me. 

I moved from confusion to anger to laughter back to confusion to sadness to laughter to confusion to depression back to sadness and ended the book with part joy and part sadness.

Okay, so what I learnt: First, polygamy is a no go area. Shikena. Secondly, resilience is something that MUST be learnt. Also, it's important to note that the evil that men do will ALWAYS come back to haunt them. Finally, as Yoruba people say "Ti a ba so oko si oja, ara ile eni ni n ba". (I don't know the English version. Please help!)

Okay, I'm done. If you have read it, please tell me how you liked the book. If you haven't read it, go grab your copy NOW!!! *in my best nollywood advertisement voice* Lol.

#Random: The author said she lives with her "husband, four children and four dogs". I read that and I thought "Errm, this is Nigeria. This woman sounds too western o. Four dogs bawo?". Lol. Just kidding.

She has a website here

There's something about the book here

Follow her on twitter at @lolashoneyin (she followed me just because I tweeted the title of the book :D)

Okay, bye. Have an awesome week.