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A review by bahareads
His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie
funny
hopeful
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
His only Wife is was a mindless shallow fun read. I couldn’t stop reading it. I didn’t read the synopsis before I picked it up so I was going in blind. Afi (the main character) has only one goal. There’s only one goal in the book, that’s it. No twists or turns just one thing. To be his only wife.
Afi acted like a child for almost the entire book, until she grew a backbone and realized she was not going to be the chosen one. HOWEVER, it did throw me that she wasn’t a virgin and that she had been with two other men, because honest to God. In my opinion, she was acting like a virgin. Afi being so wary of any other women hurt my heart. Like what happened to girlhood?!
As the course of the book played out, I could see where the plot was heading. It hurt my heart. I didn’t realize all of Reese’s book club books had ‘happy’ endings until Caitlin brought it up. I thought Afi was, maybe, going to be a very miserable woman. It’s crazy (annoying) how all of the contemporary African novels I’ve read recently have the sons seen by everyone in the books as mindless saints in need of protection.
Most of the other characters in the book - Afi’s mom, husband, uncles, aunts, and other side characters - were just there. They were there to further the plot along and provide interactive scenes for Afi to move the plot forward. I liked a few of them, Afi’s favourite cousin for example. But most of them irked me, for all the right reasons. They played their part in the book well.
The growth of Afi did throw me for a loop. She evolved throughout the book from being a ‘backward’ country girl to a ‘posh’ city woman. BUT for her to grow a backbone like she did was something else. I honestly didn’t expect her to be so stout in her resolution regarding what she wanted out of life at the end. There were a few timeline or plot skips that made me peeved. We go from Afi thinking about opening a boutique to her opening one in the span of a few paragraphs. That threw me for a loop. Over all this wasn’t a stand-out book but it was an enjoyable read.
Afi acted like a child for almost the entire book, until she grew a backbone and realized she was not going to be the chosen one. HOWEVER, it did throw me that she wasn’t a virgin and that she had been with two other men, because honest to God. In my opinion, she was acting like a virgin. Afi being so wary of any other women hurt my heart. Like what happened to girlhood?!
As the course of the book played out, I could see where the plot was heading. It hurt my heart. I didn’t realize all of Reese’s book club books had ‘happy’ endings until Caitlin brought it up. I thought Afi was, maybe, going to be a very miserable woman. It’s crazy (annoying) how all of the contemporary African novels I’ve read recently have the sons seen by everyone in the books as mindless saints in need of protection.
Most of the other characters in the book - Afi’s mom, husband, uncles, aunts, and other side characters - were just there. They were there to further the plot along and provide interactive scenes for Afi to move the plot forward. I liked a few of them, Afi’s favourite cousin for example. But most of them irked me, for all the right reasons. They played their part in the book well.
The growth of Afi did throw me for a loop. She evolved throughout the book from being a ‘backward’ country girl to a ‘posh’ city woman. BUT for her to grow a backbone like she did was something else. I honestly didn’t expect her to be so stout in her resolution regarding what she wanted out of life at the end. There were a few timeline or plot skips that made me peeved. We go from Afi thinking about opening a boutique to her opening one in the span of a few paragraphs. That threw me for a loop. Over all this wasn’t a stand-out book but it was an enjoyable read.