Stay with Me
Ratings31
Average rating4.2
15
Ratings31
Average rating4.2
“Powerfully magnetic. . . . In the lineage of great works by Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. . . . A thoroughly contemporary—and deeply moving—portrait of a marriage.” —The New York Times Book Review
Ilesa, Nigeria. Ever since they first met and fell in love at university, Yejide and Akin have agreed: polygamy is not for them. But four years into their marriage—after consulting fertility doctors and healers, and trying strange teas and unlikely cures—Yejide is still not pregnant. She assumes she still has time—until her in-laws arrive on her doorstep with a young woman they introduce as Akin’s second wife. Furious, shocked, and livid with jealousy, Yejide knows the only way to save her marriage is to get pregnant. Which, finally, she does—but at a cost far greater than she could have dared to imagine. The unforgettable story of a marriage as seen through the eyes of both husband and wife, Stay With Me asks how much we can sacrifice for the sake of family.
A New York Times Notable Book One of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Chicago Tribune, BuzzFeed, Entertainment Weekly, The New York Post, Southern Living, The Skimm.
A 2017 BEA Buzz Panel Selection, A Belletrist Book-of-the-Month, A Sarah Jessica Parker Book Club Selection, Shortlisted for the 2017 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, Shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize and the 9mobile Prize for Literature, Longlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize
Reviews with the most likes.
This was a heart breaking read. It was powerful and moving and tragic.
Finished this a few days ago, but am still thinking about it. It is a sad and enlightening book about Nigerian views toward women who do not/cannot bear children, and an amazing debut novel. Since I've already read a debut novel for the 2017 Read Harder Challenge, I am using this to fulfill the “Read a book wherein all point-of-view characters are people of color” category.
I loved the storytelling in this book as it was engaging but I didn't like a single character in this book (not that I think I was meant to) and the ending just fell a little flat to me.
I loved the way they highlighted important bits of Nigeria's history such as the rampant insecurity, rigged elections and the coups but they didn't dwell too much on it as it was something that was common and citizens had to simply live with it.
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