Happy end of the month, guys!
For some reason I sometimes feel like I have nothing to say. I don't know, maybe my life is not just as exciting as I'd like due to limited funds or my overestimation of how exciting I am as a person in my head .vs. Reality is just uneven. I don't know ....What I do know however is that I have looked at some bloggers coming out with 5-6 posts a week and I just look at my one or two post every few months and after a while, I start to think, "Mena, is there any point to it?, Does anyone even read this stuff?.... But I shall not shy because even if it's one or two, it's a GOOD one or two. Right?!
Coming into a new year, I made some intentional but not so resolution-y resolutions. Most of which I've stuck to [Reading and Fitfam]; some that still need to be worked, and others that'll require my efforts and Baba'nla picking up my call.
This month I read The secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives by Lola Shoneyin. I picked this book because I thought the title a little interesting. I read a lot of reviews saying it was a story carrying quite a punch, so I thought, “Why not?”
The secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives is a story about a graduate who marries into a polygamous home as a fourth wife to a rich, rotund and patriarchal man called Baba Segi, causing dismay for her ambitious mother. This however is the least of Bolanle's worries as she is not just walking into any house but to a clamorous one that is full of character. A pack of three wolves, sorry, wives and seven children. Although a graduate and seen as a great prize to her husband, she is not exempt from his rotational midnight lashings that lack foreplay and warmth because to Baba Segi even graduates must produce children and his persistent bellyache for his seed to be planted is a sign that things are not as they should be.
In this book, Bolanle is a mysterious key that opens many doors and unravels umpteen truths. Weaving the voices of Baba Segi, his three wives and their children and some other minor characters into the storyline. Each of their memoirs unravel a flavoursome chain of events of how they become connected to Baba Segi, and end up wives and mother's to his children, as well as their struggles for survival within a polygamous home.
This book is quite memorable because of it's attempt to expose the trials that may be faced in polygamous homes, not just in Nigeria but as a consensus. Bolanle did not use the common response to life’s unfairness such as: succumbing to "Desperation" or " Spite" to make things happen for her or to her mother's "I told you so" attitude when divulging her trials in her matrimonial home. Despite her circumstances she did not tiptoe around life unfairness or the senselessness of pain hurled at her especially by her past, her husband, co-wives and her family members but with good faith held her head high and saw it through till the end.
Would I recommend this book to someone else? Most definitely. Would we have the same experiences reading it? Probably not.
Ratings: 4.5/5
Because apparently, there's always room for improvement.
Books I've read in past months:
The Thing around your neck- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Accidental Apprentice - Vikas Swarup
XOXO
Mena
