My Thoughts:
The voice of Adanna, Ada, Sophie is so intriguing. I like when she code switches and although I don't understand everything they say, I am still captured by it. This is a diaspora story about the stifling pressures of being children of immigrants. Even if this family is in Canada, the family dynamic and the large extended family that creates their own community is still familiar to American audiences. There is a pressure to be good over happy. There is a question of whose dreams should matter?
I did try to listen to the audiobook, but I somehow have a different voice in my head so I am reading this instead. Ada in my head sounds like some of the teens I worked with when I was training teachers in Durban, South Africa.
This is also a love triangle. Although I cannot reveal who she chooses in the end, suffice it to say, I am more than satisfied. I was cheering! I started this book before it came out in the summer of 2022, but I just was not in the right space to start it. However, now that I have finished it, it was a great read for teens that need a bit of mystery, family drama, social media realness, friendship drama, and a realistic coming of age dilemma.
She thinks the only things worth doing are those that will lead to success.
For seventeen-year-old Adanna Nkwachi, life is all about duty: to school and the debate team, to her Nigerian parents, and even to her cousin Genny as Adanna helps prepare Genny’s wedding to Afrobeats superstar Skeleboy. Because ever since her older brother, Sam, had a fight with their parents a few years ago and disappeared, somebody had to fill the void he left behind. Adanna may never understand what caused Sam to leave home, but the one thing she knows is that it’s on her to make sure her parents’ sacrifices aren’t in vain.
One day, chance brings the siblings together again and they start working to repair their bond. Although she fears how their parents will react if they find out, Adanna’s determined to get answers about the night Sam left—Sam, who was supposed to be an engineer but is now, what, a poet? The more she learns about Sam’s poetry, the more Adanna begins to wonder if maybe her own happiness is just as important as doing what’s expected of her.
Amid parental pressure, anxiety over the debate competition, a complicated love life, and the Nigerian wedding-to-end-all-weddings, can Adanna learn, just this once, to put herself first?
For seventeen-year-old Adanna Nkwachi, life is all about duty: to school and the debate team, to her Nigerian parents, and even to her cousin Genny as Adanna helps prepare Genny’s wedding to Afrobeats superstar Skeleboy. Because ever since her older brother, Sam, had a fight with their parents a few years ago and disappeared, somebody had to fill the void he left behind. Adanna may never understand what caused Sam to leave home, but the one thing she knows is that it’s on her to make sure her parents’ sacrifices aren’t in vain.
One day, chance brings the siblings together again and they start working to repair their bond. Although she fears how their parents will react if they find out, Adanna’s determined to get answers about the night Sam left—Sam, who was supposed to be an engineer but is now, what, a poet? The more she learns about Sam’s poetry, the more Adanna begins to wonder if maybe her own happiness is just as important as doing what’s expected of her.
Amid parental pressure, anxiety over the debate competition, a complicated love life, and the Nigerian wedding-to-end-all-weddings, can Adanna learn, just this once, to put herself first?
Publication Information:
Author: Louisa Onomé
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends (July 26, 2022)
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