Well, this was a terrifying read. I can see why the author says he doesn’t get invited to cocktail parties. (He does, however, point out that he still gets invited to weddings. So there’s that.) James Sexton has litigated over twelve hundred divorces in his career. He’s seen the liars and the dirty, dirty cheats. The acrimonious and amicable. He’s represented the ones blind-sided by the divorce papers, he’s represented an actual pimp in a custody hearing. He’s been described as a ruthless sociopath, and […]
when perfect isn’t enough
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS Hello! It’s hard for me to write about this one without giving away the whole plot, so I’m going to be oblique. Yejide and Akin are a young, happily married, childless couple, and their childlessness leads them both to some questionable and desperate decisions. Yejide’s life seems damned near impossible, while somehow simultaneously completely normal. Or maybe “normal,” but either way it seems impossible, but there she is, making it happen, in the way that so many women do. What she doesn’t […]
A surprising read on marriage, motherhood, and loneliness.
This is definitely a book I wouldn’t have picked up on my own, but am glad my book club chose it. It’s nice to read outside my comfort zone every once in a while, and especially when the book turns out to be one that works out for you. Stay With Me is nominally a book about a Nigerian woman named Yejide whose husband brings home a second wife, because Yejide is unable to get pregnant, and his family is pressuring them to have a child. […]
We developed a coldness inside us that still has not thawed.
This was such a beautifully researched work of fiction, it almost feels wrong not to categorize it as a biography. The book can’t be discussed without discussing its use of the first person plural, as in “Some of us read this book. Some of us only looked at it. Some of us never even heard of it.” It’s an unusual choice, and I could certainly see where it could get old. It’s a very slim book and for me, it was just starting to show some […]