Hello friends, happy Wednesday! Today I’m posting my review of Chinelo Okparanta’s novel Under the Udala Trees.

Under the Udala Trees by: Chinelo Okparanta: This was a beautiful coming of age story of Ijeoma, born just before the civil wars in Nigeria. When her father dies in the war, she’s sent away to stay safe. While away, she meets Amina a girl from a different tribe, who she ends up falling in love with. When they are discovered, this is when Ijeoma learns she must hide this part of herself. It’s a big part and hiding it comes with the cost of happiness. She must sacrifice her own happiness in order to stay alive. This novel was very heavy, but super important, eye opening and felt like it gave a voice to those who need it and don’t have one. This was about a subject that this reader doesn’t have much experience with, but it felt like it was written with such care and understanding. Dealing with queer people living in Nigeria, which the author mentioned in her author’s note is one of the most religious countries in the world. This information gave a lot of context to this novel and really shined a light on how unsafe it can be for those people. Even though this novel took place between the late 70s and early 90s, the author mentioned that it is still very much unsafe for people to love who they want freely. The plot was hard-hitting and could be intense, but the way this ended with hope for the future, for things to get better, that there can be a way to love who you want, left this feeling optimistic. The reader wasn’t sure how this was going to end and we were worried for our main character because it really wasn’t looking promising, but did this ever take a swing in a direction we didn’t see coming. The reader didn’t care for the way this started though, it felt a little all over the place; it wasn’t told in a chronological order and left us to try and figure out what the author was trying to tell us, it just felt confusing. But after we passed the first few parts it was told in order and we could follow along. The writing in this was gorgeous, filled with prose about first love, and falling in love, loss and heartache. There was a lot of bible talk, which this reader can see how that would be a turn off to some, but it felt like that was how we really got to know our main character. She was so connected to her faith because that’s all she knew and how she grew up; it was a big part of her, so without that, this story would have lacked. The characters were so well developed; they felt real, and genuine in their wants and fears. Even the secondary characters brought so much to the story, while also standing on their own. Overall, this was a novel this reader wasn’t prepared for, but ended up loving for its heart and resilience in the face of adversity.