Review by Booklist Review
Ogunyemi's writing has the power to reverberate through generations. She captures the spirit of Nigeria and gives voice to the complicated mix of disappointment, fierce loyalty, and adoration Nigerians have for their country. Her first book, a novel-in-stories, follows four best friends, Remi, Nonso, Aisha, and Solape, who meet in boarding school and forge a lasting friendship built on survival and compassion. When tragedy strikes during a failed student rebellion against an authoritarian head teacher, the girls' friendship is cemented in a shared loss that shapes the rest of their lives. Each woman is intelligent, ambitious, and dreams fully and selflessly. Nonso's life is influenced by a childhood trip to Ghana where she encountered the painful legacy of slavery on the African continent. Remi finds a partner to help her confront painful family wounds. Aisha is finally absolved of lifelong guilt through a selfless act in her old age. Each story is deeply moving and the whole is so well-paced readers will be shocked at how quickly they reach the last page. Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions celebrates friendship, the power of community and home, and the joy of being a woman able to take control of her destiny.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Nigerian writer Ogunyemi debuts with a dynamic novel in stories featuring four women and their lost illusions. Schoolmates Nonso, Remi, Aisha, and Solape become close friends at a Nigerian boarding school in the 1980s, where, in the title story, the girls are consumed with "spite-filled delight" while protesting the school's contentious principal for firing several beloved teachers. Their revolt, while personally liberating and unifying, ends tragically. The stories that follow explore their professional success and interpersonal betrayal. "Reflections from the Hood of a Car" picks up with Remi's former lover, now living in the Bronx in 1991. In "Last Stop, Jibowu," set in 2005, Nonso lives in Brooklyn and works as an investment banker, while the short "Area Boy Rescue" dictates the daily trials of Nonso's housekeeper. The ambitious closer, "Messenger RNA," set in 2050, imagines a 78-year-old Aisha savoring a "nice, comfortable silence" and the company of her granddaughter. Through the many leaps in time and views from supporting characters, Ogunyemi succeeds at showing how each of the four women's lives were shaped by their fiery youth. These richly developed stories are resonant and rewarding. (Sept.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Nigerian short-story writer and poet Ogunyemi debuts with a superlative collection of interconnected stories. The first begins in 1890s Nigeria, focusing on four young women--Nonso, Remi, Aisha, and Solape. They protest an unreasonable school headmistress, and this leads to a tragedy among their ranks. As viewpoints and time constantly shift, narrator Liz Femi impeccably conveys each girl (and later, woman). Narrator Korey Jackson appears briefly, but Femi takes center stage. Richly rendered details of cities, villages, friendships, and family relationships will keep listeners engaged. Particularly irresistible are glimpses of life in Nigeria. A passenger on a crowded jitney leads everyone (including a chicken) in prayer; after witnessing his mother being beaten by a brutal police officer, an eight-year-old boy leaves the family car and bites the unsuspecting man on the leg. The women continue to influence each other as they travel the world. In the final story, set in a dystopian 2050 United States, the women are elders, swept up in a finale that is as disturbing as it is credible. VERDICT Superb narration enhances Ogunyemi's extraordinary writing, with atmospheric Nigeria and its language making this audio a must-listen.--Susan G. Baird
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A novel in stories that orbits four girls who meet in boarding school in Nigeria. Remi, Nonso, Aisha, and Solape become fast friends as schoolgirls. The book's title refers to an incident that occurs on campus in 1986 and changes their lives irrevocably. When an acrimonious principal fires several teachers beloved by their pupils, students revolt. Some girls participate in the protest and some don't, but they all experience lasting consequences from the choices they make in this single moment of their childhoods. The first of the book's connected stories takes place long before the uprising and centers a grandmother of one of the girls in an origin story of sorts that demonstrates this writer's capacious vision. The stories that follow trace the trajectories of the girls' lives as they grow into ambitious, cosmopolitan, globe-trotting women and introduce others who populate their worlds. One story, narrated by Remi's college sweetheart, takes place in the Bronx; a story narrated by Solape's mother and another by Nonso's housekeeper are set in Nigeria nine years apart. In this way Ogunyemi widens the aperture beyond the tight-knit friendship among the central characters to address family dynamics, race relations, changing political landscapes in the United States and Nigeria, and the ways in which women and girls adapt, endure, and thrive. These stories both collapse and reconstruct the coming-of-age arc in a refreshing way. The final story shines brightest in imagining a near future for the elders the girls become, and for the U.S. and Nigeria, that exceeds Aristotle's maxim that a good ending be surprising yet inevitable. Ogunyemi explores myriad themes, from religion and fundamentalism to grief and resilience, capitalism and corruption, with aplomb. This kaleidoscopic narrative features engaging sociopolitical drama alongside a charismatic cast of characters. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
