Reviews with content warning for Drug use - Lightseekers

Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

Lightseekers by Femi Kayode

8 reviews

ukponge's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

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outsmartyourshelf's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.5

Three young students are brutally murdered in a Nigerian university town, & the murders & those who participated are filmed & put on social media. Very few people are on trial for the murders & those who are seem to be at risk of escaping justice. The father of one of the boys contacts investigative psychologist, Philip Taiwo, & asks for his help in ascertaining why the killings happened. Philip's research is into crowd behaviour & violence but he may be out of his depth with this case.

This one puts you through the wringer of emotions! The sheer horror & brutality of the three young students' deaths is shocking, but there's more to come when Philip Taiwo (recently returned to Nigeria with his family from living in the US) comes up against the culture clash during his investigation. It's not a high action thriller, or even a pacy legal thriller, it's an examination of the issue of mob violence & the atrocities to which this can lead. The main character also has his flaws, an estrangement with his wife could be sorted out with a conversation but Philip decides to nurse his grievances instead, & he flirts with his attraction to another woman. Overall though I enjoyed it enough to finish reading it & will pick up the next in the series.

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naiu_cs's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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lhodgson26's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

3.0

This book had so much going on with it being a murder mystery and also a psychological one for how people can be manipulated into doing anything including murder. There are so many different themes explored throughout the book and the setting of a small Nigerian town made it even more interesting. I found it quite slow to get into and there were so many twists and turns it was difficult at fully understand it especially with many different characters. I really enjoyed Philips perspective and his moral compass. Chika was a great character too and I hope there's more books of the pair so we can explore more of the back story.

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octygon's review against another edition

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dark informative mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I thoroughly enjoyed this mystery, as did all the other members of my book club. This book was clearly inspired by the Aluu 4 incident, and does a really interesting job discussing "jungle justice," vigilantism, government corruption, modern diaspora of African people, etc. It was a very thought-provoking book. The main character, Dr. Philip Taiwo, is a criminal psychologist, and has recently returned to Nigeria. He and his wife were educated in America, and worked here for many years, but they recently decided it was time bring their young family back to the country of their birth. Because of this, Dr. Taiwo and his family are kind of between cultures--Nigerian and American, both outsider and native at the same time. Dr. Taiwo is asked to investigate a necklace lynching of 3 college students in a village near the city of Port Harcourt--a horrific example of vigilatism that members of the mob videoed and posted on the internet. The mystery is not who did it--that's obvious--the mystery is *why,* and how a crowd of local villagers can transform into a dangerous mob that can kill. My book club felt the author went a little too far with the end of the book, but I felt it worked. Along the way, we really enjoyed the characters and the story, and everything we learned about Nigeria. The relationships between the characters were great. We loved Dr. Taiwo and his family, we desperately hope that Salome gets her own book, and Chika needs one, too!

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