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A review by cathd80
Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala
4.0
When you're a teenager, relationships feel exceptionally complicated, something Niru and Meredith learn in in Speak No Evil, the new novel from Uzodinma Iweala. They are seniors at a private school in Washington D.C. where he is a track star and is set to attend Harvard in the fall. She is also a runner, but with a more rebellious side, which she can afford as her parents are high-powered D.C. insiders. They are great friends until Meredith tries to make them something more and Niru rebuffs her. This is the first of two acts on her part that will have a profound impact on him. Why? Because Niru is black and he's gay.
Iweala divides Speak No Evil cleanly into two parts: Niru and then Meredith, with both teens telling their story from their point of view. This might seem like a simple choice but it goes well beyond that. It is also the divide between each of their lives-public vs. private, black vs. white, and traditional vs. modern. Niru's parents are from Nigeria where homosexuality is a crime. He is just beginning to accept his feelings, but lives in terror of his deeply conservative father finding out. When he does, his response is extreme in its religiosity and upends Niru's life. Niru, a young man who does everything right, as he's supposed to, but wants love in a way his father believes is a sin to be punished.
The rest of this review is at: https://wp.me/p2B7gG-2Gx
Iweala divides Speak No Evil cleanly into two parts: Niru and then Meredith, with both teens telling their story from their point of view. This might seem like a simple choice but it goes well beyond that. It is also the divide between each of their lives-public vs. private, black vs. white, and traditional vs. modern. Niru's parents are from Nigeria where homosexuality is a crime. He is just beginning to accept his feelings, but lives in terror of his deeply conservative father finding out. When he does, his response is extreme in its religiosity and upends Niru's life. Niru, a young man who does everything right, as he's supposed to, but wants love in a way his father believes is a sin to be punished.
The rest of this review is at: https://wp.me/p2B7gG-2Gx