Reviews with content warning for Pregnancy - Someday, Maybe

Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

Someday, Maybe by Onyi Nwabineli

55 reviews

arireadsitall's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book was so beautiful, but also very devastating. It’s very heavy on grief and dealing with the aftermath of the death of a spouse. Do you really get inside the protagonist head and it’s not the happiest place to be. Looks like this feels so real and hit deeper than other ones

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not_quimby's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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lisettemarie's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective sad

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rhubarbpi3's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I liked this book much more than I thought I would, but the pacing was inconsistent, the writing felt fan fiction-y at times, and I wish that it hadn’t felt so locked up in Eve’s head. The dialogue was also generally stilted. I thought the questions it brought up were interesting, however.

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wordsofclover's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I received this book from the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book is going to stay with me for a long time.

We follow Eve in the days and months following her husband’s unexpected death. As Eve loses herself in grief, her familyy try to help her as best they can and she also has to deal with her horrible mother in law who seems determined to make her feel guilty for the loss of her son.

Not only is this just a beautifully written book that left me in an emotional heap, I just don’t think I’ve read a book that captured the confusing, overwhelming feeling of grief and the not so linear process of getting over the loss of someone. Not only that but we also have a secondary element to Q’s death in this book as he died by suicide. We follow Eve’s confusion and guilt over the clear mental health crisis Q was suffering from that he had apparently completely hidden from her as well as the anger that eventually surfaces over such a death, and the repetition of the guilt for feeling the anger - and then also the anger at others for being angry at Q. It was a whole cycle that was very real and very full of feeling.

The importance of family and friends is beautiful in this - Eve comes from a Nigerian-English family and we see time and time again how the presence of her parents and her brother, and the staunch protector in her older sister brings Eve peace even if she doesn’t quite realize it. Eve feels frustrated that her family think she needs to ‘get over’ Q’s death quicker than she ever could but what they really want is a flicker of their old Eve back and how afraid they are of losing her as well. Not to mention they are also dealing with grief too as they loved Q as well.

Eve’s mother in law is potentially one of the worst characters I’ve ever read - she doesn’t really have any redemption but I don’t think she deserved one anyway. Every time her name came up, I boiled with rage on Eve’s behalf. And also felt anger at Q for allowing his mother to be this way to Eve for their entire relationship.

I like that this book didn’t tie up Q’s death in a neat bow. It was tragic, awful and may have been preventable if he had been able to communicate better about how he felt. There was no note because sometimes there isn’t. The story was still full of questions by the end that could never be answered because Q wasn’t here anymore.

This book is a raw gut punch of emotion and absolutely amazing.

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holliejoy's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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badmom's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Simply put - this is a deeply beautiful account of the vast range of emotional reactions to suicide, and the disparate forms love & support & grief might take. Our narrator is understandably distraught over her husband’s death; his mother’s response, extreme in its ugly vindictiveness, is also shown to be understandable, in a way. Everyone in Q’s orbit is shaken by his death but shows their sorrow in different ways, leaving his widow feeling even more unmoored as she tries (or doesn’t) to find a path forward.
We are treated to the sweet and sometimes bittersweet history of this couple and with that we see the unfolding of characters that reveals layers of relationships. Nwabineli’s writing is subtly astute in the ways it shows growth in even the slightest of characters - she makes us notice everyone and compels us consider their stories within our own stories while allowing connections we might otherwise resist.

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christopher_shiprack's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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suzquinn97's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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thecriticalreader's review against another edition

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emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Review:

Someday, Maybe by Onyi Nwabineli is a novel about grief. Full stop. After the unexpected death of her husband by suicide, Eve must grieve without closure and deal with a mother-in-law from hell who blames her for her son’s death. Nwabineli unflinchingly confronts the ugly, terrifying, messiness of grief head-on. Eve does not respond to her loss with dignity or strength—she careens into a bottomless pit of despair and does not begin to crawl out of it for months. She self-destructs and pulls everyone around her, including the reader, into the vortex of her pain. The result is a book that is excruciating to read; Eve’s pain is raw and unrelenting, and it’s hard not to become frustrated with her as she utterly fails to take responsibility for herself and behaves selfishly toward her friends and family. For some readers, Eve’s privilege might make her an unlikable or unrelatable character. After all, she shows little gratitude for her Herculean familial support system and the financial security that allows her to quit her job. However, in giving Eve access to anything that a grieving person could possibly need, Nwabineli underscores the way that grief is an inherently destructive force, even in cases of extraordinary privilege.

Someday, Maybe is a well-written debut that deftly traverses moments of heart, humor, and heartbreak. The book is illuminated by its rich cast of characters that make up Eve’s British Nigerian family and her friends, all of whom display strength and compassion in their own ways. One only wishes that the vibrancy with which Nwabineli constructs these side characters and their relationships carried over to Eve and her dead husband, Quentin. Despite the fact that the book is ostensibly dedicated to these two characters and their marriage, something about these two never quite feels authentic—almost like a rom-com relationship peppered with hinted moments of darkness rather than a realistic romantic relationship. The novel does an incredible job painting a portrait of grief and a British Nigerian family, but its inability to paint a strong enough portrait of its main character and her husband prevent it from reaching the level of a masterpiece.

The Run-Down:

****PLEASE READ TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR THIS BOOK!***