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This post is a review of Dele Weds Destiny by debut author, Tomi Obaro.
I found this book on an online list of the 'best debut novels of 2022' and the cover made me grab it. I could instantly tell this was a book with African flair and all my partiality came into play. The blurb revealed it was set in Nigeria and the promise of sticky warmth, bright colors, and delicious flavors that the pages held convinced me to pick it up.
Acclaim and Accolades for Dele Weds Destiny
A VANITY FAIR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
What is Dele Weds Destiny about?
At its core, this is a story about friendship. Lifelong female friendships that endure through time, trials, and triumphs; through personal and collective change.
It's about friendships that help us learn who we are in the beginning and that serve to remind us of who we are later on.
This is also a story of mothers and daughters. Both Fumni and her daughter, Destiny, whose wedding the three friends have gathered for, as well as Etinan and her daughter, Remi, who is seeing her mother's home country and the environment that shaped her for the first time. In both cases, we see the struggle to connect between the two generations, even when the desire is there. In Etinan's case, we see this complexity reach a third generation in her strained relationship with her own mother.
Through it all, we see how this friendship has anchored each of these women and seen them through many transitions in their lives. We see how it's grown them, shaped them, and, in some cases, hurt them. We also see how it's healed and nourished them.
Storyline (Blurb) of Dele Weds Destiny
The story of three once-inseparable college friends in Nigeria who reunite in Lagos for the first time in thirty years—a sparkling novel about the extraordinary resilience of female friendship. Funmi, Enitan, and Zainab first meet at university in Nigeria and become friends for life despite their differences. Funmi is beautiful, brash, and determined; Enitan is homely and eager, seeking escape from her single mother’s smothering and needy love; Zainab is elegant and reserved, raised by her father’s first two wives after her mother’s death in childbirth. Their friendship is complicated but enduring, and over the course of the novel, the reader learns about their loves and losses. How Funmi stole Zainab’s boyfriend and became pregnant, only to have an abortion and lose the boyfriend to police violence. How Enitan was seduced by an American Peace Corps volunteer, the only one who ever really saw her, but is culturally so different from him—a Connecticut WASP—that raising their daughter together put them at odds. How Zainab fell in love with her teacher, a friend of her father’s, and ruptured her relationship with her father to have him. Now, some thirty years later, the three women are reunited for the first time, in Lagos. The occasion: Funmi’s daughter, Destiny, is getting married. Enitan brings her American daughter, Remi. Zainab travels by bus, nervously leaving her ailing husband in the care of their son. Funmi, hosting the weekend with her wealthy husband, wants everything to go perfectly. But as the big day approaches, it becomes clear that something is not right. As the novel builds powerfully, the complexities of the mothers’ friendship—and the private wisdom each has earned—come to bear on a riveting, heartrending moment of decision. Dele Weds Destiny is a sensational debut from a dazzling new voice in contemporary fiction.
What I Liked About This Book
Inner Drives
This book explored inner drives well. It was very interesting to me to uncover why the characters were the way they were. Why Etinan would jump into a marriage halfway across the world with the first man who asked her; why her daughter, Remi, mixed race and struggling to find a place she belongs, would cycle through fads and self-destructive behaviors and borderline extremist/purist political views.
Why Fumni would marry a man seemingly determined to ignore her entirely and feel he was a worthy husband so long as he provided handsomely for her and their child. Why Fumni's daughter, Destiny, would agree to marry a man with all the signs of turning into her father and thus recreating a marriage like her mother's because it pleases her parents. Why she would ignore her own desires in love and in her career to fulfill those handed down to her by parents.
The author does a good job of sharing backstories so that we truly understand the characters and see the hidden fears and desires that motivate and drive them to these otherwise baffling choices.
The Landscapes
This book takes place mostly in Nigeria, in Zaria where the ladies first met at university, and then later in Lagos, where they reunite for the wedding. Even having never been, I know Nigeria is a vibrant, textured, and chaotic place. Without overdoing it in such a way that it distracted from the story, I think Obaro did a good job of contextualizing the 'where' for us and making the setting real.
What I Disliked About This Book
Novice
While I thoroughly enjoyed it, in some ways this book read like a first novel, which is criticism you should take with a grain of salt because this is her first novel. However, I point it out because a lot of my critiques will stem from this, these are pitfalls that many new authors tend to fall into and that generally correct themselves as they get more seasoned.
Telling
'Show don't Tell' is perhaps the first (and best) writing advice that most of us get, and for good reason. Showing creates an immersive experience that the reader can lose themselves in while Telling turns reading the story into a job. Telling often provides so many details that reading becomes about sifting through them.
I wish the author trusted us enough to figure out for ourselves some of the things that she tells us. They were not all necessary. Some gaps (not plot holes or omissions that would render the story incomplete) would have been good to draw the reader in and make the experience more active and dynamic for us. With the author doing all the work, it lets the reader fall into a passive role which lessens the joy of the reading experience.
Character Development
I enjoyed the characters in this story. They were well-fleshed out and believable for the most part and they all did their part to drive the story forward. However, I also found them to be more agents to drive the story than three-dimensional characters. They each were too much of something that they were required to be for their character to work within the story.
Fumni had to be almost blindly ambitious and driven by appearances and external factors. If age had thawed her out and she became more self-aware and emotionally connected to herself and others, like her daughter, then the storyline would crumble. So, there is a necessary lack of character development that I find very limiting and, for lack of a better word, armature.
Verdict: 3.5 Stars
I think this is a great book. It's fun, it's easy to pick up and read. The subject matter and setting are very interesting and I'm glad I picked it up. It wasn't as easy for me to get completely lost in it as I would have liked and I think some things could have been done better.
That said, I enjoyed Tomi Obaro's voice and I have no doubt that she will continue to get better as her career progresses, something I look forward to seeing.
Let me know if you pick it up and what you think of it.
Happy reading and talk soon,
Nonjabulo
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